Taking the ferry instead of flying is many times worse for the environment. This is shown by a new review carried out by the travel magazine Vagabond together with KTH and Chalmers, where they compared the carbon dioxide emissions from flights and ferries to, among other places, Visby, Helsinki and Tallinn.
One explanation is that the speed has been increased at sea.
– Now the Gotland ferry runs at 27-28 knots. If you slow down to 20 knots, roughly the same speed as Finland’s ferries, it would lead to almost halving carbon dioxide emissions, says Jonas Åkerman, who is a research leader at KTH focusing on sustainable, long-distance transport, to Vagabond.
But a ferry trip to Gotland without a car is estimated to produce roughly the same carbon dioxide emissions as if it had been done by plane.
The researcher: Total emissions are affected by the length of the trip
However, Jörgen Larsson, researcher in sustainable travel at Chalmers, believes that it is important to consider that the total emissions are affected by the length of the trip.
– If you fly, you can fly a lot longer, and the total emissions from the flight will be much higher than from the ferry on average, says Jörgen Larsson, researcher in sustainable travel at Chalmers.
In the player above: More about the emissions review in the player above.