Transportation choices: those to avoid, those to embrace.
Reading time : 5 minutes
|Published on : 24/02/2025
Contents
You may have read that the average carbon footprint of a French person is around 9 tonnes CO2e per year, thus, transportation accounts for a third of those emissions. But as with all averages, this figure hides significant disparities. To understand the real impact, let's break down the transportation footprint together and see which elements make a big difference.
The 2 types of transport to avoid
No need to beat around the bush.
1. Cars
What makes cars the highest carbon footprint transportation type for the French population is their overwhelming dominance in our territories, habits and collective mindset. Today, it is common to take the car for trips of less than one kilometer. Roads, parking spaces, our infrastructure is built around cars, often making other transport options seem unthinkable due to the lack of alternatives.
But this heavy dependence on cars significantly increases individual footprints:
- On average, a French person drives about 10,000 km per year.
- The carbon footprint per kilometer in a car is around 200 gCO2e.
- Even switching to an electric vehicle keeps the footprint high. While electric cars reduce emissions from fuel combustion, they have an large footprint from manufacturing, particularly due to battery production and this must be offset over time.
It is important today to reduce private car use.
2. Airplanes
Unlike cars the problem with air travel isn’t its frequency but the emissions of each flight. Every takeoff results in a massive carbon footprint shared among passengers. A Paris-New York round trip releases 1.8 tons CO2e per passenger, while the individual target is 2 tons per year.
So, while aviation’s overall share of the average French carbon footprint appears small (less than 5%), this figure conceals major social disparities. In reality, only 11% of French people fly regularly (more than twice a year). The footprint is enormous, but spread across a population where most people do not fly.
3. What about motorized two-wheelers?
At the national level, their footprint is negligible compared to other modes of transport. Motorcycles and scooters are far more efficient than cars. They are lighter and thus have a lower footprint. If they replace car trips, they offer an economic and environmental win. But if they replace trips that could have been made using active mobility or public transportation, it is better to avoid them.
The top 3 transport types to embrace
When calculating your carbon footprint, we ask for all the details of your travel habits. However, some modes of transport barely count or don’t count at all in terms of emissions. These are the ones you can use and abuse of without worry!
1. Efficient active mobility
Why “efficient”? Active mobility refers to the most energy-efficient modes of transport for carrying one or multiple people. With a vehicle weighing less than 20 kg, or at most 40 kg for electric cargo bikes, you can easily transport one, two, or even three people (a bike carrying two children) over short, sometimes medium and occasionally even long distances, including grocery shopping!
These modes are nearly footprint-free:
- On one hand, the amortization of an object whose lifespan is potentially infinite if you take care of it.
- On the other hand, a zero usage footprint for anything without electric assistance and just a few grams for assisted vehicles (2.2 gCO2e per km for an electric-assist bicycle)."
2. Trains
Trains make long-distance travel possible with an incredibly low footprint. A TGV has nearly the same footprint as an electric bike, 2.9 gCO2e per km!
Other types of trains are also highly efficient: 8 gCO2e per km for intercity trains, and even the TER at 27 gCO2e per km remains one of the cleanest transport options.
3. Public transport
Electrified public transport systems are among the lowest-impact modes of transport**: trams, metros, and RER trains emit between 5 and 10 gCO2e per km.
Even though buses are not as efficient:
- They are designed for short to medium distances (urban and interurban travel).
- Many bus fleets are currently transitioning to electric models, which will improve their footprint, currently around 160 gCO2e per km.
Wondering what your transport footprint is?
Julie,
For the past ten years Julie has been committed to the transition of our society. She joined the Nos Gestes Climat team in 2023 as a carbon specialist and is responsible for the clarity of the calculator and published content.
