CARBON OFFSET SCHEMES

You are thinking of buying a new car and want to compare the price, running cost and environmental cost of two similar sized cars. You are trying to decide between the hybrid Toyota car “Prius’ and a similar sized car. Although the Prius is more environmentally sound it seems a bit expensive. You have heard of another way to counter the negative environmental effects of cars called Carbon Trading and know of an Australian Company (Climatefriendly) that runs a Carbon offset scheme.

In order to make a cost analysis of your two options you will need to undertake the following tasks:

1. Look up the specifications of the Toyota Prius and decide on a similar car for comparison.
2. Compare initial cost, petrol consumption and cost, and carbon emissions for each car.
3. Investigate the carbon offset scheme and calculate the cost of offsetting the carbon emissions for each car.

You should carry out the above calculations for both low and high mileage and also for various time periods of car ownership, for example 5 years, 8 years or 10 years. Display your results in either a graph or table and interpret them. You should also consider the question: do you feel that Carbon trading is an acceptable way to offset carbon emissions?

You should be able to obtain all the information you need from the following web sites however feel free to obtain information from other sources.

www.climatefriendly.com

www.toyota.com.au

Developed by Susan Worsley

http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/