Posts Tagged ‘footprint’

The Carbon Footprint of Europe on Track 2!

Written by alessandra.gorini@y4pt.org on . Posted in All Y4PT Chapters, Y4PT Belgium & EU

Written by Jerome Kisielewicz and Thiago Tavares

Carbon footprintFor the second edition of Europe on Track, Y4PT has been very pleased to collaborate with AEGEE. We consider this project as a great way to mobilize the European youth, have a grasp of their vision of the world and encourage them to reflect about different challenges and solutions. Considering that Y4PT’s objective is to encourage the use of more sustainable modes of transport, we supported the project through two initiatives.

Firstly, as the 6 AEGEE ambassadors were travelling around Europe by different means of transport, we offered them a way to better understand the impact of their mobility choices on our climate. Why is this important?

In the EU, transport is responsible for 25% of the total greenhouse gases emissions (GHG). And while you could think that the majority of these emissions are due to the transport of goods around the continent, passenger transport is actually responsible for 58% of the EU transport emissions! It is therefore crucial for the European citizens to understand that their daily mobility choices can have a real impact on the EU efforts to decrease its GHG emissions and thus avoid the worst impact of climate change.

To help our ambassadors monitor their choices, Y4PT members designed a carbon footprint calculator specifically dedicated to transport.

Prague, a city where public transport is loved by locals

Written by alessandra.gorini@y4pt.org on . Posted in Y4PT Belgium & EU, Y4PT World

Written by Heyder Ribeiro
??????????As part of the Y4PT collaboration with AEGEE in the  project Europe on Track II, I went to Czech Republic to meet the Blue Team ambassadors (Javier Castillo, Wessel Reijers and Yana Brovdij)  during their stay in Prague. Together, we visited the depot of Prague’s main tube line to have a closer look into one of Europe’s best public transport systems. Also, at  Vysoké škole ekonomické v Praze (University of Economics) we had the opportunity to meet young European students, and for a couple of hours, talk about some matters that will shape Europe’s future.

There is a lot to tell and to ensure that you will not miss any bit of this adventure, I will divide this experience in 3 different short articles. So let´s get started.

As an Y4PT representative I aimed to observe and experience Prague’s public transport from the perspective of a visitor, which was my case. But also I wanted to get the impressions of the locals; the ones who move around town on a daily basis. At last, with the help of Dopravní podnik hlavního města Prahy (Prague’s public transport company), I intended to have a better understanding of the logistics and challenges involved on keeping public transport working 24 hours a day. 

In order to prepare myself for this challenge, my trip to Prague started before my departure. But when I sat down to study some basic words in Czech, and search more about the city I was going to visit, I wasn’t expecting to read in a traveller’s guide book, things such as: “We (Prague citizens) are very proud of our awesome public transport” or: “Be like us, and use our public transport!” It sounded amazing to see locals proudly encouraging the use of their public transport, because I can’t think of a cheaper and more efficient way of promoting public transport.

So with some good tips written in my notebook and great expectations, I left to Prague.

More than 4000 Km in 4 days

Written by alessandra.gorini@y4pt.org on . Posted in All Y4PT Chapters, Y4PT Belgium & EU

Carbon_footprint_status_14-04The ambassadors of Europe on Track are in their 4th day of travelling and they have already travelled more than 4 000 km around Europe.

In order to reduce the environmental impact of their travel, the ambassadors are not only trying to use the sustainable means of transport, but also measuring their carbon footprint.

But what is Carbon Footprint?

In a nutshell, Carbon Footprint is the shorthand to describe the best estimate that we can get of the full climate change impact of something. That something could be anything – an activity, an item, a lifestyle, a company, a country or even the whole world.

As we know, climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the modern age and reducing the carbon emissions is one of the main solutions for this issue.

Y4PT is happy to collaborate with AEGEE on Europe on Track 2

Written by admin on . Posted in All Y4PT Chapters, Y4PT Belgium & EU in Brussels

EoT2_launch

When we first heard about Europe on Track at Y4PT we immediately thought… what a great idea! What a great idea to open the mind of young Europeans, to encourage them to discover new cultures and new ways of thinking and to make them travel throughout Europe. So we asked ourselves, how could we contribute to this project? How could we bring the transport related issues to the heart of the project?