Carbon Emissions From Private Jets Have Exploded In Recent Years

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The climate impact of flights taken by the super-rich rose sharply from 2019 to 2023, fuelling calls for a carbon tax on private aviation

Flights taken on private jets should be subject to a carbon tax to curb the runaway growth in carbon emissions from the sector, researchers have said.

Emissions from private aviation jumped 46 per cent between 2019 and 2023, according to analysis of 18.7 million flights by almost 26,000 aircraft.

Flights were mainly for leisure reasons, with 1846 private flights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar alone. Other popular destinations were the Cannes Film Festival, the Super Bowl, the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Trips to the south of France, Ibiza and other destinations in Spain peaked during the summer months as travellers jetted in for long weekends of sun.

A rather small group of very wealthy individuals, because of their lifestyles and investments, is pushing emissions quite quickly up," says Stefan Gossling at Linnaeus University, Sweden.

Alongside colleagues, Gossling used flight tracker data for millions of flights to build a picture of private aviation use around the world.

Flying by private jet is the most polluting way to travel, with a single flight emitting 3.6 tonnes of CO2 on average, equivalent to the annual carbon impact of someone living in Sweden.

Most flights on private jets are short, the analysis found, with almost half of all flights covering a distance less than 500 kilometres. Most were within the US and Europe.

Total emissions from private jets in 2023 were 15.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions of Tanzania. That is up from 10.7 megatonnes in 2019.

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