Today the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is holding its annual World Environment day, a day designed, acording to the UN itself,to 'give a human face to environmental issues' and to 'empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development.'

To that end, the nice men and women with green briefcases and brains have published 'Kick the Carbon Habit! A Guide to Carbon Neutrality.'

Today's events celebrate efforts already in place to usher developed countries toward lower carbon emissions, and is this year mainly based in New Zealand, one of the five countries that have pledged to become 'carbon neutral.' The guide however, focuses on what it calls 'no regrets' choices that citizens from developed countries around the world can make in order to cut their daily emissions. The guide suggests that people from those places that contribute the most to global warming, that is, North America, Europe, Australasia, should be able to cut their daily emissions from around 38Kg to 14 Kg through simple, painless choices.

Rather than focus on the actions of business and government the guide highlights the cumulative effect of minor decisions. For example, if each airline passanger took 20Kg less luggage onto their flight then global greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by two million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Airline passangers find themselves especially appealed to by the guide, as air journeys contribute such a huge percentage of carbon dioxide emssions. The guide calls on passengers to use rail or even coach services for inter-city journeys, stating that trains account for around one third of the CO2 that a plane would produce over the same distance.

But what about those of us who are not jet setting off around Europe or bargain hunting the cheapest flights to the sun every other month? Well, the 202-page report shows how each daily decision of the planet's 6.7 billion population is significant to the challenge of becoming carbon neutral.

For those with early starts, or late finishes, using a wind-up alarm clock rather than an electric one will save 48 grams of C02 each day. Hanging the smalls out on the line, rather than drying them in the machine, would save 2.3Kg for each load, and a 45 minute run through the park, rather than on the treadmill, would save 1Kg of emissions.

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