Emissions from private jets soar almost 50% in four years

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Carbon dioxide emissions from private jets soared almost 50 per cent in four years, research has found, driven by a shift in the wealthy’s post-pandemic travel habits including high numbers of flights serving big global events.

The most frequent private flyers generated annual emissions that were hundreds of times greater than the average person’s total carbon footprint, according to the study of more than 25,000 aircraft between 2019 and 2023. 

The research, published on Thursday in the Communications Earth & Environment journal, highlights the hundreds of flights to and from high-profile international gatherings — including the UN COP climate summits where countries push to limit global warming. The big rise will concern officials preparing to gather in Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate conference next week. 

The findings underscored the sector’s sustained boom after wealthy users switched to private aviation to continue long-distance journeys when Covid forced lockdowns around the world.

They also showed a “fundamental disregard of climate change at the top of society”, said Stefan Gössling, the paper’s lead author and a professor in the business and economics school of Sweden’s Linnaeus University.

“Private aircraft are used as taxis in many cases, never mind the climate implication,” he added. “The broader population will not understand why they should reduce emissions if the top is not regulated — or leading by example.”

Gössling and colleagues examined tracker data from 18,655,789 private flights by 25,993 registered jet-type private aircraft between 2019 and 2023, representing the vast majority of the sector’s activity. They estimated the CO₂ emissions of each flight using advertised fuel consumption rates for each aircraft. 

The researchers calculated that the flights produced 15.6mn tonnes of CO₂ in direct emissions in 2023. That represented a 46 per cent rise from the 2019 figure, and accounted for about 1.8 per cent of total emissions from commercial aviation last year. 

The 2022 football World Cup in Qatar was associated with 1,846 flights; the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last year, with 660; and the COP28 conference in the UAE, with 291. The highest individual emitters — based on an analysis of aircraft registration numbers — produced more than 500 more times CO₂ from flights than the total global average emissions per person, based on World Bank figures for 2020, the researchers found.

Many rich individuals have continued using private jets since the end of the pandemic, attracted by the privacy, personalised service and convenience. The rise in companies offering fractional ownership or bookings on “empty leg” repositioning flights have also made the industry more affordable. 

There were 5.1mn private flights in 2023, 15 per cent more than in 2019, according to data from the aviation consultant WingX.  

Some parts of the industry have tried to become more sustainable, principally by offering customers carbon offsets or cleaner “sustainable aviation fuels” on their flights. 

Victor, an Abu Dhabi-based private jet charter company, said more than 500 clients had chosen to add an extra £1,000 to their bills in order to reduce the emissions of their flights by using some cleaner fuels.

While air travel is not the biggest source of pollution, accounting for 3 per cent of global emissions, environmental groups have called for private jets to face much heavier taxation. Fuel used in private aviation is generally untaxed around the world. 

The UK last week announced higher taxes on some private jet flights in its Budget, which the industry said would not deter flyers.

Gössling called for the sector to be “regulated to grow at lower rates”, such as by increasing landing fees to discourage both shorter flights and passenger-free flights to airports where charges are lower.  

Private aviation emissions would probably be two or three times higher if other greenhouse gases were taken into account, said Felix Creutzig, a group leader at the Berlin-based Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change.

Calling for greater regulation of the sector, he said “super-rich individuals are role models and their choices matter beyond their individual footprint”.