Carbon emissions from private jets have increased explosively in recent years

Researchers say private jet flights should be subject to a carbon tax to curb runaway carbon emissions from the sector.

Emissions from civil aviation increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023, according to an analysis of 18.7 million flights by nearly 26,000 aircraft.

Flights were mainly for leisure purposes, with 1,846 commercial flights alone leading up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Other popular destinations included the Cannes Film Festival, the Super Bowl, the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Travel to the south of France, Ibiza and other Spanish destinations peaked during the summer months as people jetted in for long weekends in the sun.

“A small group of very wealthy people are rapidly driving up emissions because of their lifestyles and investments,” said Stefan Goessling of Linnaeus University in Sweden.

Together with his colleagues, Goessling used flight tracking data from millions of flights to build a picture of civil aviation usage around the world.

Flying in a private jet is the most polluting form of transport, emitting an average of 3.6 tonnes of CO2 per flight, equivalent to the annual carbon impact of a person living in Sweden.

The analysis found that most private jet flights are short, with nearly half of all flights flying less than 500 kilometers. Most were within the United States and Europe.

Total emissions from private jets in 2023 will be 15.6 megatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions of Tanzania. This is up from 10.7 million tonnes in 2019.

Growth rates were distorted by the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike civil aviation, which faced significant restrictions in 2020 and 2021, civil aviation saw only a small drop in flight numbers and emissions in 2020, before returning to growth the following year.

According to data compiled by the website Celebrity Jets, many of the most widely used private jets are owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. It is owned by some of the richest and most famous people, including the company’s CEO, pop star Jay-Z, and TV personality Kim Kardashian.

“This is about inequality in greenhouse gas production,” says Mark Maslin of University College London. “It’s not even 1%. It’s the richest 0.1% of people in the world who snap their fingers and fly on private jets.”

Goessling says the high personal emissions of the ultra-wealthy run the risk of undermining the public’s desire to reduce personal emissions. “If the very rich don’t need to reduce their emissions, there’s no reason for anyone else to reduce their emissions, because everyone else is reducing their emissions,” he says.

Mr Goessling would like to see a carbon tax applied to the use of private jets. “You can put a price tag on every ton (of carbon) emitted. I think everyone agrees that it’s fair for the wealthy to pay the cost of the damage they’re causing,” he said. says.

Some hope the government goes further. Sean Curry, from campaign group Stay Grounded, wants private jets to be banned completely. “About half of these flights are short-haul flights,” he says. “If we ban private jets and invest in real infrastructure, they could easily be replaced by trains.”