Tesla CEO Elon Musk boards his private jet before departing from Beijing Capital International Airport on May 31, 2023.
“Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are getting a bargain, paying less in taxes each year to fly private and contribute more pollution than millions of drivers combined on the roads below.”
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey announced legislation on Wednesday that would hike fuel taxes for private jet travel and transfer the revenue to a new federal fund aimed at bolstering clean public transportation and other climate initiatives.
The bill, titled the Fueling Alternative Transportation With a Carbon Aviation Tax (FATCAT) Act, would add a $1.73-per-gallon surcharge to the current fuel tax for private jet travel, which is around $0.22 per gallon. Markey’s new surcharge would amount to the equivalent of roughly $200 per metric ton of a private jet’s carbon emissions, according to the senator’s office.
Private jet flights—a significantly more polluting form of travel than commercial flights or trains—surged during the coronavirus pandemic. One recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Patriotic Millionaires estimated that private jets’ planet-warming emissions jumped by more than 23% during the Covid-19 crisis.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s billionaire CEO, is the most frequent private jet flyer in the U.S., helping produce more than 2,100 tons of carbon emissions last year while paying minimal taxes, according to IPS and the Patriotic Millionaires. The groups pointed to research showing that just 1% of the world’s population is responsible for half of all aviation emissions.
“The 1 percent can’t free ride on our environment and our infrastructure at a discount,” Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are getting a bargain, paying less in taxes each year to fly private and contribute more pollution than millions of drivers combined on the roads below. It’s time to ground these fat cats and make them pay their fair share so that we can invest in building public transportation that communities across the country and our economy desperately need.”
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) introduced companion legislation in the House.
“Working families shouldn’t subsidize the ultra-wealthy to fly private and destroy our environment,” said Velázquez. “If billionaires want to travel on private jets, they should pay similar taxes to those flying commercial. It’s time for the rich to pay for their pollution so we can fund environmental justice initiatives and affordable public transportation across the country.”
Climate campaigners have been targeting private jets with growing frequency in recent years as research has more closely examined their impacts on the planet. The European group Transport & Environment found that private jets are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes and 50 times more polluting than trains.
In May, dozens of climate activists and scientists disrupted Europe’s largest private jet sales fair to demand a total ban on the planes. IPS and the Patriotic Millionaires estimated that the median net worth of a full private jet owner is $190 million.
“Sales of private jets are skyrocketing, and with them the one percent’s hugely unfair contribution to the climate crisis—while the most vulnerable people deal with the damage,” Klara Maria Schenk of Greenpeace’s Mobility for All campaign said during the May protest. “It is high time for politicians to put a stop to this unjust and excessive pollution and ban private jets.”
This story has been updated with additional details about the bill.
David Williams left blind in one eye and suffering trauma and anxiety after a vicious 2021 attack in his home. Contemptible Labour is trying to pin its disastrous loss in Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election on him
Labour’s appalling conduct under the authoritarian and blame-shifting Keir Starmer regime has continued with a series of apparently-briefed attempts to pin the blame for its woeful defeat in Thursday’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election on former constituency party chair David Williams.
Williams resigned from his position and the party last week in disgust at the way Labour had behaved during the election campaign – and he responded to the subsequent attempts to scapegoat him with a link to an article, posted on Twitter:
Some people have been criticising me for not going on the doorsteps in the byelection campaign. I met with Danny Beales at the beginning of the campaign to explain why.https://t.co/NhWHrD0OJW
The article revealed that Williams was the victim of a horrific attack in 2021 by his mentally ill former son-in-law – an attack that left him permanently blind in one eye after the attacker tried to gouge out his eyes and then strangle him with a skipping rope. In his victim impact statement to the court, Williams explained that the attack ad the ‘life-changing’ injuries had left him suffering anxiety and nightmares – and that despite being ‘politically active’,
My days of door knocking and meeting people on the doorsteps are now behind me.
Now Labour is trying to deflect blame from the abysmal and spineless Keir Starmer and the lacklustre right-wing candidate Starmer’s party rigged into the selection by claiming a man disabled in a vicious attack did not do enough door-knocking. Only one word springs to mind for the people who would do such a thing, but Skwawkbox will allow readers to fill in the blank for themselves.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
Despite floods and fires, both left and right in the US act like environmental disaster isn’t happening
There’s a lot of hot air from the American right around education at the moment, with hate groups inciting moral panics that have resulted in the banning of books related to race, sex and gender. But there seems to be surprisingly little emphasis on another right-wing bugbear: environmentalism.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that US conservatives don’t consider bashing Greta Thunberg on the internet a national pastime. It’s just that Greta and the cause she represents don’t seem to come up when right-wing activists go to school-board meetings to scream about ‘transgenderism’ or ‘critical race theory’.
On one level, it is, of course, good that they’re not calling for literature addressing our environmental crises to be banned in schools. Growing up, I learned a lot from Ranger Rick magazine, a product of the National Wildlife Federation that teaches children about nature and supports conservation. But on another level, the lack of interest on this issue from the right may actually signal a problem for the US and therefore – because my country is such an outsized contributor to global climate change – the entire planet.
Authoritarians are bullies who paint themselves as victims. If you want to see what I mean, just type ‘Donald Trump’ and the phrase ‘treated very unfairly’ into Google. They whine and scream the loudest when they feel their privilege and power to be most immediately threatened. And if Republicans do not feel especially threatened on behalf of their precious fossil fuels industry, that’s probably because the US is highly unlikely to pass any serious environmental regulations any time soon.
Cheap airline tickets, made possible by favorable government tax treatment, “come at a high cost to the planet and its inhabitants,” the environmental group warned.
A study released Thursday by Greenpeace found that the policy decisions of European governments have made flying a significantly cheaper option than traveling by train, even though the former is far worse for the climate than the latter.
For its analysis, Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe compared air and rail fares for nine different days on 112 European travel routes.
“In the majority (79 out of 112) of routes analyzed, flights are less expensive than rail,” the group noted in its new study. “Rail trips are on average twice as expensive as flights, despite the fact that the overall climate impact of flying can be over 80 times worse than taking a train.”
“Why would anyone take the train from London to Barcelona and pay up to €384 when air tickets are available for the ridiculously low price of €12.99?” the group asked. (That’s roughly $427 for a rail trip versus $14 to fly.)
Greenpeace attributed the often substantial differences in price to “unfair tax” policies that “favor air travel over rail.” The group pointed out that “while airlines pay neither kerosene tax nor [a value-added tax] on international flights and benefit from subsidies paid with taxpayers’ money, railways have to pay energy taxes, VAT, and high rail tolls in most countries.”
“For the planet and people’s sake, politicians must act to turn this situation around.”
Lorelei Limousin, a senior climate campaigner with Greenpeace E.U., said Thursday that “airlines benefit from outrageous fiscal advantages.”
“Planes pollute far more than trains, so why are people being encouraged to fly?” Limousin continued. “Low-cost airlines, in particular, have exploited every loophole and trick in the book. €10 [$11] airline tickets are only possible because others, like workers and taxpayers, pay the true cost. For the planet and people’s sake, politicians must act to turn this situation around and make taking the train the more affordable option, or else we’re only going to see more and more heatwaves like the one currently wreaking total havoc in Spain, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere.”
Flying has been the fastest-growing source of transport emissions in the E.U. in recent years, and Greenpeace argued that European governments and institutions are effectively subsidizing the aviation industry’s planet-warming emissions “through giveaways to airlines and airports” while simultaneously “closing down railway stations and lines.”
Low-cost airlines in particular have benefited from government subsidies and less regulation. Greenpeace’s analysis shows that “incentives for new routes from an airport are mainly designed for low-cost carriers, which are typically flying to small airports near large airports, which are considered new destinations (Paris-Beauvais, Frankfurt-Hahn…).”
“Thanks to the outrageous subsidies that airlines benefit from, they can offer unreasonably low prices—low-cost airlines are at the forefront with their aggressive pricing strategies,” Greenpeace said. “But these cheap tickets come at a high cost to the planet and its inhabitants, including their employees, airport neighbors, customers, people affected by extreme weather events.”
To promote less polluting travel, Greenpeace urged European national governments to “introduce climate tickets, affordable and simple long-term tickets valid on all means of public transport in a country or a defined region.”
“Together with the E.U. institutions, they should also cooperate for the implementation of a cross-border climate ticket,” the group said in a statement. “Windfall profit taxes, the phaseout of airline subsidies, and a fair taxation system based on CO2 emissions would make revenues available for funding climate tickets while improving public transport networks.”
Gail Bradbrook, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion.
As deadly temperature records are set daily, the silencing of those that would speak truth to power can be felt. And it’s chilling.
There has been a pattern in recent climate protector trials where defendants are told they don’t have a defence in law, that anything they want to say in their defence is inadmissible and irrelevant and that they can’t inform the jury of the jury’s long-established right to make decisions based on their conscience. Moreover, people are threatened with imprisonment, and sometimes even imprisoned, if they do.
The trial of Dr Gail Bradbrook
The long-postponed jury trial of Dr. Gail Bradbrook, cofounder of XR, for breaking a window at the UK’s Department for Transport – supposedly valued at £27.5k – in October 2019 [1] began sitting on Monday this week (17 July). [2]
On Tuesday Judge Martin Edmunds dismissed the jury and aborted the trial. He has now set a retrial for the week commencing 30 October, which is scheduled to last for four days instead of five. This means that the retrial is fortuitously set to take place during the fifth anniversary of the Declaration of Rebellion [3] on 31 October 2018 and Extinction Rebellion’s first major action. [4]
We are not allowed to give further details due to reporting restrictions which are now in place.
Before the trial Gail said: “I’m trying to protect the lives and the futures of my children, all the children in the world and the generations to come.”
Gail, a mother of two who holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Manchester, potentially faces up to four years in jail if found guilty for the Department for Transport action, which aimed to get the government to take adequate and appropriate action on the climate and nature emergencies. She has pleaded not guilty to the charge of criminal damage arguing that while she did break the window, she did it as an act of conscientious protection – a concept not yet recognised in current law.
The silencing and imprisonment of climate protectors
The Conservative government’s legislative clampdown is placing severe limits on the right of protest [5] [6].
Furthermore, since February 2023, three climate protectors have been jailed for six to eight weeks – just for mentioning the words climate change or fuel poverty to a jury, when attempting to explain why they undertook their actions. [7] [8] [9]
Gail’s trial was postponed several times across four years to take account of various rulings, notably including the Colston statue case, which alongside other rulings rendered specific legal defences to be no longer valid, thus an excuse for the court systems to silence protestors. [10] [11]. There has been a pattern of jury acquittals in direct action cases, which have embarrassed the government and enraged certain sections of the press. [12]
“Juries must be allowed to have the evidence regarding current law, as well as the wider context,” added Gail. “On this basis, they may serve justice rather than power, by asserting their right to reach a verdict based on their conscience.
”It is now common in the trial of climate protectors for the judge to rule that defendants are not allowed to speak about their motivations in court, denying them the right to a fair trial, an absolute right under the Human Rights Act.”
Quotes
Actress Emma Thompson: “In the same way we honour the women who broke windows to gain the vote, so we will honour the people who break windows in order to gain real action in the face of deadly climate collapse.
“People who risk losing their freedom for the sake of other humans and for the protection of all future generations are not criminals but heroes.”
Cathy Eastburn, a supporter of XR, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain, who has spent time in prison as a result of her nonviolent direct action to sound the alarm and instigate action on climate change: “Juries regularly acquit protectorsif we are able to explain our motivations and the context for our actions. The government and the courts have responded by eroding trial by jury – a highly valued central tenet of our legal system – by stealth. We are being silenced and no longer have the right to defend ourselves, nor to a fair trial. And if we stand up for ourselves against the dictates of the court, we are sent to jail.”
Kofi Mawuli Klu, Co-vice-chair, Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe: “The former colonies look up to the UK’s justice system regarding it as the gold standard. These ‘show trials’ of climate protectors are permanently damaging the reputation of the UK in the majority world. The UK must practise what it preaches, and preserve the right to a fair trial – as well as deliver on its climate change commitments.”
Gail Bradbrook and Extinction Rebellion
Gail Bradbrook co-founded Extinction Rebellion in 2018 after a period of research, preparation and network building.
A mother of two teenage boys, she holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Manchester, alongside several prizes and awards for her undergraduate degree, including the Royal Society of Chemistry’s best chemist award and a Wellcome Scholarship. She was named by GQ as one of the most influential people in Britain and honoured in the BBC Woman’s Hour Power List 2020: Our Planet – celebrating UK women making a significant contribution to the health and sustainability of the environment.
After XR’s first rebellion in April 2019, the UK parliament declared a Climate and Environment Emergency, but the government has subsequently failed to act with the necessary urgency. The government is now making things worse by licensing new oil, coal and gas developments that are incompatible with a 1.5C world [13] [14]. XR is now a global movement using nonviolent civil disobedience to put pressure on institutions to act on the climate and nature emergencies. In April this year, XR UK joined forces with over 200 organisations to bring 100,000 people together outside the UK’s parliament across four days to demand an end to the fossil fuel era, implement emergency citizens assemblies and reparations. [15]
[4] 15 environmental protesters arrested at civil disobedience campaign in London https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/31/15-environmental-protesters-arrested-at-civil-disobedience-campaign-in-london
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
Donate | Support our work What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisisAs deadly temperature records are set daily, the silencing of those that would speak truth to power can be felt. And it’s chilling. There has been a pattern in recent climate protector trials where defendants are told they don’t have a defence in law, that anything they want to say in their defence is inadmissible and irrelevant and that they can’t inform the jury of the jury’s long-established right to make decisions based on their conscience. Moreover, people are threatened with imprisonment, and sometimes even imprisoned, if they do. The trial of Dr Gail Bradbrook The long-postponed jury trial of Dr. Gail Bradbrook, cofounder of XR, for breaking a window at the UK’s Department for Transport – supposedly valued at £27.5k – in October 2019 [1] began sitting on Monday this week (17 July). [2] On Tuesday Judge Martin Edmunds dismissed the jury and aborted the trial. He has now set a retrial for the week commencing 30 October, which is scheduled to last for four days instead of five. This means that the retrial is fortuitously set to take place during the fifth anniversary of the Declaration of Rebellion [3] on 31 October 2018 and Extinction Rebellion’s first major action. [4] We are not allowed to give further details due to reporting restrictions which are now in place. Before the trial Gail said: “I’m trying to protect the lives and the futures of my children, all the children in the world and the generations to come.” Gail, a mother of two who holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Manchester, potentially faces up to four years in jail if found guilty for the Department for Transport action, which aimed to get the government to take adequate and appropriate action on the climate and nature emergencies. She has pleaded not guilty to the charge of criminal damage arguing that while she did break the window, she did it as an act of conscientious protection – a concept not yet recognised in current law. The silencing and imprisonment of climate protectors The Conservative government’s legislative clampdown is placing severe limits on the right of protest [5] [6]. Furthermore, since February 2023, three climate protectors have been jailed for six to eight weeks – just for mentioning the words climate change or fuel poverty to a jury, when attempting to explain why they undertook their actions. [7] [8] [9] Gail’s trial was postponed several times across four years to take account of various rulings, notably including the Colston statue case, which alongside other rulings rendered specific legal defences to be no longer valid, thus an excuse for the court systems to silence protestors. [10] [11]. There has been a pattern of jury acquittals in direct action cases, which have embarrassed the government and enraged certain sections of the press. [12] “Juries must be allowed to have the evidence regarding current law, as well as the wider context,” added Gail. “On this basis, they may serve justice rather than power, by asserting their right to reach a verdict based on their conscience. ”It is now common in the trial of climate protectors for the judge to rule that defendants are not allowed to speak about their motivations in court, denying them the right to a fair trial, an absolute right under the Human Rights Act.” Quotes Actress Emma Thompson: “In the same way we honour the women who broke windows to gain the vote, so we will honour the people who break windows in order to gain real action in the face of deadly climate collapse. “People who risk losing their freedom for the sake of other humans and for the protection of all future generations are not criminals but heroes.” Cathy Eastburn, a supporter of XR, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain, who has spent time in prison as a result of her nonviolent direct action to sound the alarm and instigate action on climate change: “Juries regularly acquit protectors if we are able to explain our motivations and the context for our actions. The government and the courts have responded by eroding trial by jury – a highly valued central tenet of our legal system – by stealth. We are being silenced and no longer have the right to defend ourselves, nor to a fair trial. And if we stand up for ourselves against the dictates of the court, we are sent to jail.” Kofi Mawuli Klu, Co-vice-chair, Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe: “The former colonies look up to the UK’s justice system regarding it as the gold standard. These ‘show trials’ of climate protectors are permanently damaging the reputation of the UK in the majority world. The UK must practise what it preaches, and preserve the right to a fair trial – as well as deliver on its climate change commitments.” Gail Bradbrook and Extinction Rebellion Gail Bradbrook co-founded Extinction Rebellion in 2018 after a period of research, preparation and network building. A mother of two teenage boys, she holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Manchester, alongside several prizes and awards for her undergraduate degree, including the Royal Society of Chemistry’s best chemist award and a Wellcome Scholarship. She was named by GQ as one of the most influential people in Britain and honoured in the BBC Woman’s Hour Power List 2020: Our Planet – celebrating UK women making a significant contribution to the health and sustainability of the environment. After XR’s first rebellion in April 2019, the UK parliament declared a Climate and Environment Emergency, but the government has subsequently failed to act with the necessary urgency. The government is now making things worse by licensing new oil, coal and gas developments that are incompatible with a 1.5C world [13] [14]. XR is now a global movement using nonviolent civil disobedience to put pressure on institutions to act on the climate and nature emergencies. In April this year, XR UK joined forces with over 200 organisations to bring 100,000 people together outside the UK’s parliament across four days to demand an end to the fossil fuel era, implement emergency citizens assemblies and reparations. [15] Notes for editors: [1] Extinction Rebellion disrupt UKs Department for Transport – where is the plan to meet a net zero target and halt biodiversity loss? https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2019/10/15/extinction-rebellion-disrupt-uks-department-for-transport-where-is-the-plan-to-meet-a-net-zero-target-and-halt-biodiversity-loss/ [2] Extinction Rebellion protestor ‘caused £27,000 worth of damage to government building’ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/17/extinction-rebellion-protester-27000-damage-government-building [3] Declaration of Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion 2018 https://extinctionrebellion.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/XR-A3-declaration-V1.pdf [4] 15 environmental protesters arrested at civil disobedience campaign in London https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/31/15-environmental-protesters-arrested-at-civil-disobedience-campaign-in-london [5] UN rights chief urges UK to reverse ‘troubling’ Public Order Bill https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/un-rights-chief-urges-uk-reverse-troubling-public-order-bill-2023-04-27/ [6] Liberty launches legal action against home secretary for overriding parliament on protest powers https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/liberty-launches-legal-action-against-home-secretary-for-overriding-parliament-on-protest-powers/ [7] Insulate Britain activist jailed for eight weeks for contempt of court https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/07/insulate-britain-activist-david-nixon-jailed-for-eight-weeks-for-contempt-of-court [8] Activists jailed for seven weeks for defying ban on mentioning climate crisis https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/activists-jailed-for-seven-weeks-for-defying-ban-on-mentioning-climate-crisis/ [9] Protesters must be allowed to explain motives in court https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/protesters-must-be-allowed-to-explain-motives-in-court-zhpg2g3gs [10] Extinction Rebellion co-founder’s trial delayed by Colston review https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-61154538 [11] Extinction Rebellion protester to face trial after Court of Appeal ruling https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64044348 [12] The Stealth Undermining of Trial by Jury https://planb.earth/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/The-Stealth-Undermining-of-Trial-by-Jury.pdf [13] New fossil fuels ‘incompatible’ with 1.5C goal, comprehensive analysis finds https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-fossil-fuels-incompatible-with-1-5c-goal-comprehensive-analysis-finds/ [14] Lord Deben backs Labour’s plan to halt new North Sea oil and gas drilling https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/06/lord-deben-backs-labours-plan-to-halt-new-north-sea-oil-and-gas-drilling [15] The Big One: Our Collective Demand https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/collective-demand/ About Extinction Rebellion Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Donate | Support our work What Emergency? | Read about the true scale of the climate crisis XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups XR UK website | Find out more about XRUK XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe! Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts. XR UK Local Groups | View a map of all local groups XR UK website | Find out more about XRUK XR Global website | Discover what’s going on in XR around the globe!
Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.
