AP: Carbon pollution from high flying rich in private jets soars

[OKIsItJustMe]

Carbon pollution from high flying rich in private jets soars

By SETH BORENSTEIN
Updated 11:07 AM EST, November 7, 2024

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.

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[OKIsItJustMe]

1. The Guardian: 'Used like taxis': Soaring private jet flights drive up climate-heating emissions

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/07/used-like-taxis-soaring-private-jet-flights-drive-up-climate-heating-emissions

‘Used like taxis’: Soaring private jet flights drive up climate-heating emissions
Analysis of 19m flights between 2019 and 2023 reveals 50% rise in emissions, condemned as ‘gratuitous waste’

Damian Carrington Environment editor
Thu 7 Nov 2024 11.00 EST

Private jet flights have soared in recent years, with the resulting climate-heating emissions rising by 50%, the most comprehensive global analysis to date has revealed.

The assessment tracked more than 25,000 private jets and almost 19m flights between 2019 and 2023. It found almost half the jets travelled less than 500km and 900,000 were used “like taxis” for trips of less than 50km. Many flights were for holidays, arriving in sunny locations in the summertime. The Fifa World Cup in Qatar in 2022 attracted more than 1,800 private flights.

Private flights, used by just 0.003% of the world’s population, are the most polluting form of transport. The researchers found that passengers in larger private jets caused more CO2 emissions in an hour than the average person did in a year.

The US dominated private jet travel, representing 69% of flights, and Canada, the UK and Australia were all in the top 10. A private jet takes off every six minutes in the UK. The total emissions from private jet flights in 2023 was more than 15m tonnes, more than the 60 million people of Tanzania emitted.

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