Great Western Coffee Shop

This map, developed by Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (https://www.creds.ac.uk/) (CREDS) could prove a useful resource for anyone interested in sustainability and carbon emissions. As you would expect, it shows just how climate-friendly urban living is compared with the outer suburbs (those areas we often refer to as 'the countryside'):

https://www.carbon.place

Hmmm.......

If you look at much of the far west, (West and North Cornwall in particular), rural parts of Norfolk and east Lincolnshire, Holderness, they all score well. By contrast there's a swathe of North London from Hampstead through Highgate to Muswell Hill that does badly, as does a large wedge into south west London that runs into and beyond Clapham.

On a global scale - https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-shows-just-25-mega-cities-produce-52-of-the-worlds-urban-greenhouse-gas-emissions

It's very detailed. I live in an area it classifies as D+. Two streets to the east is B+ and two streets west is F+, the major difference seeming to be in flights and consumption of goods. The other side of the A38 in Montpellier there's an even greater contrast, from C to F in crossing a road. I believe the Red Squirrel dray is located in this region? Surely in the C area!  ;) Boundaries at this level are inevitably a bit arbitrary...

...which, eccentrically, doesn't seem to make much of the fact that huge numbers of people live in these cities. Carbon emissions per head are generally lower, or far lower, for urban dwellers.

Still not convinced RS. A quick scoot around the internet indicates that the number of urban dwellers (define in a UK context???) exceeded the number of rural dwellers for the first time in 2007, and in 2018 it was a ration of about 55/45 in favour of urban. (see - https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization). If just 25 megacities produced 52% of global carbon emissions, what about all the other cities in the world?

Spending a little while clicking on low and high emission areas, there's two striking conclusions - one that's not surprising, namely the emission levels seem to be largely related to the prosperity of the area, and secondly the enormous impact of air travel - both overall in the average for England as a whole (see the third column in the bar graphs for each area) and in many areas with a poor score.

Areas of deprivation, or with an elderly population seem to do a lot better whether rural or urban - less consumption and travel, presumably. I don't know Bristol that well, but the carbon footprint in the Clifton and Stoke Bishop will give Hampstead and Roehampton a run for their money. By contrast one of the best performers is area E0104542 ("Central") described as "Cosmopolitan Student Neighbourhoods" - where it seems they use much less electricity or gas than average (who's been tampering with the meters?) and presumably their gap-year flights were booked in their prosperous home postcodes.

Hours of fascinating browsing here!

It is striking that when consumption-related emissions are taken into account, the leafy suburbs of towns fare badly. But transport is also a major emitter. If you live somewhere where you need to get in car every time you leave the house, your emissions will be worse than those of someone whose consumption levels are similar who can walk or get the bus or train. So comparing like with like, emissions for urban dwellers tend to be lower.

The reason I've rather sunk my teeth into this one is that cities are wrongly maligned as the big emitters because people forget to divide the total emissions by the number of people living there!

There's an article here on The Conversation which suggests that suburbs are indeed worse for carbon emissions and energy efficiency than either cities or rural life:
https://theconversation.com/suburban-living-the-worst-for-carbon-emissions-new-research-149332

However, it goes on to say that this only true in rich, developed Western nations, where the income gap between urban and rural areas is small. In these conditions, the greater efficiency, denser living, smaller homes, reduced travelling distances, outweigh the marginally greater consumption of stuff. In poorer countries, the increased income enjoyed by urbanites far outweighs these factors.