Island’s CO2 emissions not insignificant

In Thursday 13 January’s Press you published a long letter from Richard Wharton [Open Lines, Guernsey should follow on climate, not be a leader] where he claims, among other things, ‘the recent volcanic activity on the island of Las Palmas will probably have released more CO2 into the atmosphere than Guernsey has done this century. The message could not be more clear. In world terms Guernsey is insignificant and should not be trying to lead the way in carbon reduction.’

Figures for Guernsey’s CO2 emissions are easily found in the Guernsey Facts and Figures booklet produced each year by the States. We can see that over the last three decades, Guernsey has averaged over 400,000 tons per year.

Based on UK emissions peaking in the early ’70s it is safe to assume the average over the last century for Guernsey is well above 400,000 tons per year.

That gives us a conservative estimate of 40m. tons of CO2 emitted by Guernsey over the last century.

Finding an estimate of the emissions due to the Las Palmas volcanic activity is a little harder as no one has taken the time to calculate that.

However we can find estimates for larger historic eruptions.

The 1980 Mount St Helens eruption has been estimated to have produced emissions of 10m. tons of CO2 (https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/volcanoes-can-affect-climate).

We therefore have that Guernsey over the last century has emitted more CO2 than four Mount St Helens-sized volcanic eruptions.

I wouldn’t call us insignificant.

Harry Plumley

La Villiaze Lodge

Rue de la Villiaze

GY8 0HQ