'Global warming summit in Paris will produce '300,000 tons of C02!'

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The climate change summit in Paris aiming at tackling global warming, will itself pump an estimated 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

About 50,000 people including world leaders, official attendees, activists, business leaders are expected to travel from across the globe for the two-week conference in Paris which started Monday.

Most will arrive by plane from as far afield as New Zealand, Sydney and Bermuda, while others will arrive by train and car. 

According to calculations by Wired and Steven Stoft of climateParis.org, the average round trip per attendee will be around 9,000 miles.

Taking the fuel consumption of a Boeing 747 – around 16.5 miles per gallon – which the website describes as a 'happy medium between private jets and bullet trains', it is estimated around 27 million gallons of fuel will be used by travellers attending the conference. 

This figure was arrived at by multiplying the number of attendees by the around round trip mileage to get 450million miles then multiplying that by 16.5miles per gallon.

With each gallon of fuel producing around 21 pounds of carbon dioxide, the total released by planes flying to and from Paris is thought to be about 575million pounds (290,000 tons), according to rough calculations