The data for Naturefund's CO2 calculators come from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Federal Environment Agency, the Society for Consumer Research and the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention. The data for the calculation of CO2 emissions from traffic comes from the BMU.
According to the BMU, a car generates on average:
per liter of gasoline 2.32 kg CO2; 2.63 kg CO2 per liter of diesel; 2.23 kg of CO2 per kg of natural gas.
According to the BMU, an average of 369 grams of CO2 are released for each person on board an aircraft per kilometer. The BMU calculates all climate-relevant effects of air traffic.
The climate-impacting effects are also referred to as RFI factor (Radiative Forcing Index). When climate-damaging substances reach higher levels of the atmosphere, they have a much greater impact on the climate than they do on ground-level CO2 emissions.
The BMU indicates the following CO2 emissions for the different energy carriers:
per kilowatt hour Green electricity 0.04 kg CO2 per kilowatt hour Electricity 0.61 kg CO2 per kilowatt hour Natural gas 0.24 kg CO2 per kilowatt hour Fuel oil 0.3 kg CO2 per kilowatt hour District heating 0.13 kg CO2 per kilowatt hour Wood 0.1 kg CO2
The figures for the consumption of heating energy per square meter for the different energy sources come from the Society for Consumer Research, 'Household Energy Consumption and Trade, Commerce and Services', 2004.
The data for CO2 emissions from nutrition come from 'The Citizen's CO2 Balance', 2007, BMU. On average, 1.55 tonnes of CO2 per person are released in Germany every year through nutrition.
This value increases with meat-stressed diet, with sport activity as well as frequent consumption of frozen food. It decreases with meat-reduced or vegetarian diet, with the purchase of regional products as well as with the main consumption of organic products.
The data for the CO2 uptake of a tree are also average values. Trees absorb very different CO2 depending on tree species, light intensity, latitude, growing time, soil conditions and much more.
The data for the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) were used as the basis for the calculations of the CO2 uptake of trees.
While in Central Europe a deciduous tree absorbs on average 10 kg of CO2 per year, this value is much higher in the tropics. a. because of the higher light intensity and the faster growth of the trees there.
In the early years, young trees absorb relatively little amount of CO2. The older trees get, the more leaves and branches they lose, some die off again, then rot and emit CO2.
Currently, Naturefund grows at various locations. These include tropical rainforest in Honduras and Madagascar, various forest species in the highlands of Bolivia and fruit trees in northern Spain. In the highlands of Bolivia and northern Spain, the trees store less CO2 than in the tropical rainforest. Overall, we calculate with an average of 500 kg of CO2, which stores a tree throughout its lifetime.
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