Tour specific travel advice to cut carbon emissions – for your tour starting in Benasque
The Eagles now has a target to emit net zero carbon from its activities within two full seasons, by cutting emissions by swapping from air to train, for example; and by offsetting. We estimate current net emissions from tours to be 280 tonnes/year after offsetting. (To keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees by 2100, each person should emit on average no more than 1.5 tonnes per year.) If you would like to help reach the club’s target, there are two main things you can do:
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Offset your travel (by whatever mode) by buying from the Club’s emissions offset scheme at a cost of around £3.50 for an average return flight within Europe and less for other modes.
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Choose lower emission mode(s) of transport for all or part of your trip. (Taking a direct flight from say Edinburgh to Munich then continuing to Innsbruck by train, instead of taking connecting flights, will still cut emissions. Or travel by train in one direction and plane the other.)
Per passenger, the rough CO2 emissions for a return from London to Geneva are as follows
Direct flight, Economy Class 400kg
Large car, 4 passengers 160kg
Small car, 4 passengers 80kg
Coach 50kg
Train (e.g. Eurostar ) 25kg
(Source of data: here)
This document gives a few tips on booking lower carbon travel to the start point of your tour, Benasque, from London. Public transport to Benasque is limited to three daily buses from Barcelona via Barbastro, total journey time about 4½ hours, see here (search the journey in two parts), €19. However, this is also a popular route for carsharing (see below, www.blablacar.com) with several trips most days in the season, so it may be a faster and cheaper alternative to a long bus journey.
Train. Barcelona is 12 hours by train from London St Pancras, with changes in Paris (from Gare de Nord to Gare de Lyon, using one fast metro line; tickets from the Eurostar buffet), and sometimes Lyon or Valence. For train times see www.bahn.co.uk (DB) – just enter origin London, or your local GB station, and your final destination. An alternative is to travel to Toulouse (9-10 hours from London, many more trains, single from Paris starting at €15) and hire a car (3½ hours, tolls).
Eurostar does not offer through London-Barcelona tickets. You can buy a ticket to Paris on www.eurostar.com, and another onwards from Paris to Barcelona at the French railways page www.oui.sncf.com. Booked well ahead Eurostar charge around £60 for a single from London to Paris and SNCF prices start at €39 from Paris to Barcelona. An SNCF discount card (€49 a year) will give you a 30% discount on most fares.
Eurostar and German Rail (DB) tickets go on sale 6 months in advance and SNCF 4 months. More train travel info at https://www.eagleskiclub.org.uk/plan-your-trip/low-carbon-travel/train-travel-tips-and-hints.
Bus. You can travel overnight from London to Paris and then onwards to Barcelona in about 24 hours and for around £50, booking ahead at www.flixbus.co.uk (quicker and cheaper to Toulouse).
Car. The Michelin route planner www.viamichelin.com suggests a drive time from London to Benasque of 15 hours (via Toulouse), a distance of 1400 km/875 miles and tolls of €65 one way. It also calculates fuel costs for your car, though not Euroshuttle. A motorway payment tag can be convenient – see www.bipandgo.com – but prices are the same as cash or card.
Carshare. Carsharing is available through Blablacar, the carsharing app. You pay for a lift – details at www.blablacar.com. If driving, register your trip details to get paying passengers – e.g. €70 for Calais-Lyon. It is heavily used in France and Spain. Trips tend to be advertised only a few days in advance, but it can often be quicker and cheaper than bus or non-high speed train.
Travelling from outside London? Apologies if this info all seems a bit London-centric but pretty much all rail and bus travel from the UK to the continent is via London, though when driving, the Hull-Zeebrugge or Newcastle-Amsterdam ferries may be a good (although carbon intensive) alternative to Euroshuttle. By train, it is possible to return as far north as Edinburgh in one day from some stations in the western Alps (Modane, for example; or from Zurich), though more difficult on the outward due to the time difference. See www.bahn.co.uk.