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HKHKG USLGB
Electronics

Hong Kong to Long Beach freight CO2 emissions

One tonne of cargo shipped Hong Kong (HKHKG) to Long Beach (USLGB) by sea emits 64.9 kg CO2e well-to-wake at GLEC v3.2 default factors. The same tonne by air emits 7,083.2 kg — roughly 109x the sea number.

Lane noteLong Beach sits adjacent to Los Angeles on San Pedro Bay; the two ports together handle ~40% of US containerised imports. Hong Kong volumes shrank sharply post-2019 as Pearl River Delta cargo shifted to Yantian and Nansha.

Per-tonne CO2e by mode

Sea freight

Container ship 10,000-15,000 TEU

64.9
kg CO2e
Distance
11,800 km
Factor (WTW)
5.5 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 11,800 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 container 12,000-15,000 TEU (Neopanamax, WTW)

Air freight

Long-haul belly cargo

7,083.2
kg CO2e
Distance
11,650 km
Factor (WTW)
608 g CO2e/tkm
Per shipment
1 t × 11,650 km
Factor source
GLEC v3.2 long-haul belly cargo allocation (WTW)

Mode comparison

On the Hong Kong to Long Beach lane, air freight emits about 109 times more CO2e per tonne than sea freight at GLEC v3.2 defaults. The gap is driven by the WTW factor difference between long-haul belly cargo (608 g CO2e/tkm) and a Container ship 10,000-15,000 TEU (5.5 g CO2e/tkm), partly offset by the shorter great-circle air routing.

Try this in the calculator

These numbers are GLEC v3.2 defaults at 1 tonne. Change weight, vessel class, or load factor in the calculator and see the per-mode CO2e update under ISO 14083:2023 data quality tiers.

Methodology references

Need primary-data emissions for Hong Kong to Long Beach?

The EcoFreight API ingests AIS, bunker delivery notes, and shipment manifests to return ISO 14083 Tier 3 primary-data numbers for the same lane. Free tier covers 1,000 calculations per month.