A recent study by a European research team has highlighted a significant surge in carbon pollution from private jets, with emissions increasing by 46% since 2019. The report, published Thursday, Nov. 7, analyzed data from over 18.5 million flights across approximately 26,000 private aircraft during the last five years.
The report found a two-hour flight on a private jet generates the same amount of pollution as the average person would in an entire year.
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In 2023, private flights taken by around 250,000 of the world’s wealthiest individuals contributed 17.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That equates to the annual emissions of Tanzania.
“This report presents further proof that billionaires are causing the climate crisis,” Jonathan Westin, executive director of the Climate Organizing Hub, said. “They are clinging to their private jets and oil profits while regular people see increasing floods, hurricanes and wildfires.”
The study’s lead author, Stefan Gössling, who also serves as a transportation researcher at the business school of Sweden’s Linnaeus University, noted that many of these flights weren’t business-related, and instead, a large portion were actually leisure trips.
“The damage is done by those with a lot of money and the cost is borne by those with very little money,” Gössling said. “The problem is that the 26,000 aircraft and the individuals using them will say ‘We are just a small group. We are not relevant in terms of emissions.’ But everybody else will look at the small group and say, ‘Look these are the super-emitters, if they are not relevant, how can we be relevant?”
According to the research team, the highest-emitting private jet user tracked in the study produced 2,645 tons of carbon dioxide from flights alone. That’s more than 500 times the global average per person.
Although the aviation sector as a whole accounts for about 4% of global carbon emissions, private jets are responsible for 1.8%, nearly half of the industry’s total.
