By SETH BORENSTEIN
Carbon pollution from private jets has soared in the past five years, with most of those small planes spewing more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in about two hours of flying than the average person does in about a year, a new study finds.
About a quarter million of the super wealthy — worth a total of $31 trillion — last year emitted 17.2 million tons (15.6 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide flying in private jets, according to Thursday’s study in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment. That’s about the same amount as the 67 million people who live in Tanzania,
Private jet emissions jumped 46% from 2019 to 2023, according to the European research team that calculated those figures by examining more than 18.6 million flights of about 26,000 airplanes over five years.
Only 1.8% of the carbon pollution from aviation is spewed by private jets and aviation as a whole is responsible for about 4% of the human-caused heat-trapping gases, the study said.
It may seem like a small amount, but it’s a matter of fairness and priorities, said the study’s lead author, Stefan Gossling, a transportation researcher at the business school of Sweden’s Linnaeus University.
“The damage is done by those with a lot of money and the cost is borne by those with very little money,” Gossling said.
The highest emitting private jet user that the team tracked — but did not identify by name — spewed 2,645 tons (2,400 metric tons) of carbon dioxide in plane use, Gossling said. That’s more than 500 times the global per person average of either 5.2 tons (4.7 metric tons) that the World Bank calculates or the 4.7 tons (4.3 metric tons) that the International Energy Agency figures and Gossling cites.
“This report presents further proof that billionaires are causing the climate crisis,” said Jonathan Westin, executive director of the advocacy organization Climate Organizing Hub. “They are clinging to their private jets and oil profits while regular people see increasing floods, hurricanes and wildfires.”
Earlier this year the International Energy Agency calculated that the world’s top 1% of super-emitting people had carbon footprints more than 1,000 times bigger than the globe’s poorest 1%.
Gossling’s study counted more than 35,600 tons (32,300 metric tons) of carbon pollution from just five global events — 2022’s World Cup in Qatar, 2023’s World Economic Forum, 2023’s Super Bowl, the 2023 Cannes film festival and the 2023 United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai. That came from 3,500 private jet flights.
“It’s a grim joke that the billionaire class is flying private jets to the annual climate conferences, and the United Nations should crack down on this hypocritical practice,” said Jean Su, energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Researchers also examined more than 1,200 flights by celebrity actors, singers and directors, but Gossling declined to give the public figures’ names.
Many private flights aren’t even for business “nor are they necessary,” Gossling said. “They are very often lifestyle related.”
While the study “does shine a …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
