Car owners can undo carbon 'wheel print' online

Feeling bad about your carbon footprint, or your wheel print in this case? Now, as with many other things in life, there is a…

Feeling bad about your carbon footprint, or your wheel print in this case? Now, as with many other things in life, there is a way of buying your way out of your guilt.

A British company - not a charity - called Climatecare has come up with a novel way of pricking your conscience by reminding you of just how much your motoring is contributing to global warming and then offering you the chance to balance the damage to the environment by contributing to worthy causes.

If you are susceptible to that guilt factor then the figures produced by Climatecare are not going to make you feel good about yourself.

According to its calculations, the average motorist driving 10,000 miles per annum in a petrol-powered car and getting 30 miles to the gallon is producing 3.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year.

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If you translate that into an example of someone here driving a similar car using 9.0 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres then their carbon output is 3.36 tonnes.

If yours is a diesel car, then that figure comes out at 3.97 tonnes. Someone driving a bigger car that averages 25 miles to the gallon is guilty of producing some 4.2 tonnes of CO2. If you are fitting the average profile here then the chances are you like to take the odd trip on an aircraft and this is where the figures will really get you down.

Climatecare's calculations mean that taking a trip from Heathrow to Rome return will add another .33 tonnes to your footprint. A return trip to New York will add 1.54 tonnes.

So, apart from walking and cycling and swearing yourself off the Ryanair website, how do you continue to call yourself a responsible world citizen?

This is where Climatecare comes in. It funds projects around the world that are involved in creating renewable energy, promote energy efficiency and restore forests.

The deal is that you continue to drive or fly or whatever and then contribute cash to these projects, thus allowing you to "offset" your carbon contribution.

You fly to New York and the world gets warmer as a result, but you can assuage your guilt by contributing money to a rainforest project. It is certainly a clever scheme designed for the world we live in.

So how much does it cost to get you out of jail? Well the average motorist cited above (10,000 miles per annum in a petrol-powered car averaging 30 miles to the gallon) should pay £26.25 (€37.68) for producing 3.5 tonnes of CO2. The diesel user should pay £29.75 (€36.19) and the 9.0 litres per 100 kilometres person should pay £25.21 (€42.67).

Climatecare calculates every tonne of CO2 at £7.50, and reminds those who might use the service that the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford has been used to verify the data and resulting calculations.

And what of the cost for the flyer ? The Rome trip will cost the contributor £2.45 (€3.50) and the New York trip will cost them £11.55 (€16.58).

When the Tories suggested this "green tax" on flying recently it got a distinctly chilly reaction from the public, so the voluntary nature of what Climatecare is offering means only the truly committed are likely to pay to balance their carbon contribution.

Others are likely to continue to buy kiwi fruit flown from New Zealand and look straight ahead when someone mentions what is coming out of their exhaust pipe.