Plans for online road map to incorporate carbon emissions

The Youth Climate Action Network is planning to develop a website which will help car drivers calculate the most energy-efficient route between two points. The website will also allow them to record their carbon emissions, so that they can track their vehicle's total carbon footprint over time.

This project is still in the development phase, and was nominated in the "Pioneer" category of the Intel "New World" Innovation Award (the only award category open to pre-launch projects).

Many of us are accustomed to the convenience of online trip-planning, and the notable feature of this project is that it simply augments this activity. Obviously this approach is more realistic than expecting users to visit a website solely to calculate their carbon footprint (how many of us have the time or discipline to do that on a regular basis!). Popular trip-planning websites already estimate the time and distance for each of the routes which they identify, and this project proposes to add another dimension: environmental cost.

The project summary (link in Chinese) only mentions driving routes, but we hope that the website, when completed, will also allow users to compare the carbon cost of driving and public transport side-by-side.

Youth Climate Action Network is one of 30 finalists in the Intel "New World" Innovation Award for Non-Profits. The award website invites the public to vote on their favourite projects between now and April 9.