Arrival

So, here I am in Vancouver BC. The BC stands for British Colombia, which calls to mind a delicate tension between damp temperate climate and equatorial delight. In practice, the British part is definitely winning, since we were greeted at the airport by driving rain, which still hasn't stopped. I feel rather at home.

It has been a long day. I took off from Heathrow at 11 o'clock this morning, and landed nine hours later in Vancouver, at midday. Flying close to due west, we've almost kept up with the rotation of the earth, as if lifted 36,000ft into the air and frozen in time and space while some giant hand spun the globe underneath us. It's kind of magical really, but in the tradition of all good fairy tales about magic, there's a price to be paid.

Which brings me neatly to the elephant in the room - in joining this trip to find out more about climate change and carbon offsets, I've had to fly a third of the way around the world. According to Offsetter's online carbon calculator, that means that by the time I land back in London, I will have been responsible for the emission of some 2.5 tonnes of CO2. That's roughly 25% of the average annual emissions for someone living in the UK, generated in less than a day.

Fortunately, Groupe Aeroplan are paying to offset emissions from the flights taken by the Change Action Team as we assemble in Vancouver from the four corners of the world (as they do for all business travel taken by the company), but can it be as easy as that, does a simple payment let us off the hook? Hopefully I'll find an answer to that question over the coming week.

My current thinking is that offsetting is an important part of the solution to climate change, but must ensure that people think more about the choices they make (like flying), not less. Air travel is often singled out as a villain in environmental conversation, and it certainly has a significant and growing impact. It is also one of the few areas for which there aren't such easy substitutes; travelling in the UK, we can catch a train; at home we can insulate or even just wear a jumper; in our shopping we can eat seasonal and local where possible; but to travel to distant parts of the world, it's a plane or nothing. Perhaps flight will be the one CO2 emitting luxury we choose to keep, once we've made the cuts we can everywhere else - there is definitely something special about really being somewhere. Even if it is raining when you arrive.

- Brendan