Tag: private jets
Greta Thunberg joins protest against Farnborough Airport expansion to demand ban on private jets
Climate activist Greta Thunberg is joining local residents, Extinction Rebellion activists and climate change campaigners outside Farnborough Airport today (27 January) to protest against plans to increase private jet flights from 50,000 to 70,000 a year. The protesters are also calling for a total ban on private jets, which are up to 30 times more polluting than passenger airliners.
Greta Thunberg said: “The fact that using private jets is both legally and socially allowed today in an escalating climate emergency is completely detached from reality.
“There are few examples that show as clearly how the rich elite is sacrificing present and future living conditions on this planet so they can maintain their extreme and violent lifestyles.”
Hundreds of protestors will gather in Farnborough town centre at 11am today to march alongside Thunberg to Farnborough Airport, setting off pink smoke flares and waving banners proclaiming ‘Flying to Extinction’, ‘Stop Private Flights Now’, ‘No to Airport Expansion’ and ‘Private Flights = Public Deaths’.
This is the latest in a series of protests against the airport’s planning application, which seeks to more than double weekend flights and boost the use of heavier, more polluting private jets. In 2022, there were 33,120 flights to and from the airport, a 27% increase compared to 2021’s total of 26,007. Flights to and from Farnborough averaged just 2.5 passengers per flight. Currently 40% of flights to and from the airport are empty, according to research by campaign group Possible. Despite claiming the majority of flights are for business use, the research showed that most Farnborough flights are headed to holiday destinations. Last September a ‘pets on jets’ service launched to fly dogs and their owners from Dubai to Farnborough and back.
Todd Smith, former airline pilot and Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, said: “Flying is the fastest way to fry the planet, and private jets are the most polluting way to fly. Surely it’s a no brainer to ban private jets and stop expanding these luxury airports in the midst of a climate crisis? Survey after survey, as well as several citizens’ assemblies have shown this would be very popular and has widespread support from the general public.
“For most people, life has become more difficult. The cost of heating our homes, buying food and paying our bills has increased massively. So imagine looking out our windows to see yet more private jets flying billionaires around.
“Is this a fair society that we live in, or is there one set of rules for the majority, and another for the elites? Plans to expand the UK’s largest private jet airport seem to make this clear.”
Godalming resident Chris Neill, 67, a retired psychotherapist, said: “We’re in a global climate and ecological emergency. We need to reduce carbon emissions fast and there’s no realistic plan for taking the carbon out of jet fuel. Until there is, we need to fly much less, not more.
“This plan to expand a luxury airport used exclusively by very wealthy people at a time when ordinary people are struggling to manage everyday life is reckless, stupid and selfish. We need a government which has the courage to stop this.”
Why are people still flying to climate conferences by private jet?
Climate change denier and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flew to COP28 at Dubai by private jet. Carole Roberts, UCL; Mark Maslin, UCL, and Prof Priti Parikh, UCL
Rishi Sunak, David Cameron and King Charles are just three of the more than 70,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries at the latest UN climate summit in Dubai, COP28. But they are among hundreds who will have travelled there by private jet. In fact, the UK prime minister, foreign secretary and king even travelled in three separate planes.
At COP27 in Egypt last year, around 315 private jet journeys took place. This is an extraordinary statistic, especially as fewer world leaders attended that COP, as many were busy at a G20 summit in Bali.
That’s why we set up a team of academic experts to estimate the carbon footprint of travel to this year’s meeting, COP28 in Dubai, for different modes of transport including private jets. We ultimately want to empower attendees to make informed climate-conscious travel choices.
We also compared the carbon footprints for the past three COPs to help see where the conferences could be located in order to dissuade attendees from using private jets, unless absolutely essential for security. The use of private jets last year – and presumably this year too, though we don’t yet have full data – suggests this is becoming the new norm and has moved beyond just essential world leaders.
Carbon footprint of transport modes
Flying is already one of the most carbon-intensive forms of travel both due to emissions from burning jet fuel and because vapour trails help create high altitude clouds which trap more heat in the atmosphere. It’s also particularly hard to decarbonise – there aren’t electric planes we could simply use instead.
For emissions, private jets are the worst of the worst. Andrew Thomas via wikimedia, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license Private jet travel is the most polluting mode of all, consuming lots of fuel yet carrying few passengers. French economist Thomas Piketty argues they are an example of class inequality and must be tackled if we are to deal with climate change.
Their use by high-profile people clearly undermines the goal of a climate conference and symbolises a disconnect between environmental concerns and individual actions and a lack of commitment to sustainable practices. This in turn risks shaping and influencing public opinion. Previous research suggests members of the public take climate action less seriously if they feel that their leaders are not doing their bit.
We started by looking at the use of private jets for COP27 in Egypt (our results are available as a preprint ahead of formal peer-review). Most private flights were short-haul, often just an hour between the capital Cairo and the conference venue in Sharm El-Sheikh. Over shorter distances, planes are even less efficient as take off and landing burns more fuel compared to cruising.
So avoiding short flights and private jets is a must. With this in mind, we explored a range of travel options to get to COP28 in Dubai for participants from the UK, where we’re based.
For a journey from London to Dubai, private jet travel is 11 times more polluting than a commercial aircraft, 35 times more than train and 52 times more than coach travel (even after factoring in a flight from Istanbul, since you can’t go all the way to Dubai by train or coach). For those flying from the UK, the longer flight to Dubai compared to Egypt means emissions will be higher this year.
Carbon intensity (grams of CO₂equivalent) of transport from London to COP28:
Flight emissions are based on journeys from London to Dubai. Car, train and coach emissions are based on journeys from London to Istanbul and then a flight. Private jet emissions are based on a Cessna 680 Citation Sovereign (most common in COP27 data), commercial flight emissions are based on an Airbus A380-300 and car journeys are calculated for a Vauxhall Corsa.
Roberts et al (2023), CC BY-SALocation of COP
Some of the blame for flight emissions must lie with the UN body which decides where COP meetings will be held, the UNFCCC. Dubai is surrounded by conflict zones, which block land routes from Europe, Asia and Africa and makes flying there essential.
While most delegates will want to travel sustainability, their actions will depend on the accessibility of alternative forms of travel such as safe land routes and for those coming from further away at least the option of direct flights to minimise their carbon emissions.
In this respect Dubai is a good choice as it is a major airline hub and so there are many direct flights and less need for second or internal flights.
Our analysis highlights the need to consider very carefully the carbon footprint implications of travel to COP meetings. Ultimately policymakers will need to identify host locations for climate change meetings which can help to minimise the carbon footprint of the participants.
Private jets are still not advisable, however. Their carbon footprint is substantially higher than other forms of transport, they exacerbates existing inequities at climate negotiations and send the wrong message to the world.
Carole Roberts, Researcher, Carbon Footprint of Transport, UCL; Mark Maslin, Professor of Natural Sciences, UCL, and Prof Priti Parikh, Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development, UCL
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
How world leaders’ high-carbon travel choices could delay climate action
Space tourism: rockets emit 100 times more CO₂ per passenger than flights – imagine a whole industry
‘This is what ‘climate leadership’ looks like’: Sunak and Cameron blasted for taking private jets to COP28
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak travelled to the COP28 Climate Conference by private jet. ‘Members of a super-rich elite who are super-heating the planet.’
As the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) got underway in Dubai on November 30, the Prime Minister is facing fresh outrage from climate campaigners over his choice of transport to the meeting – private jet.
Downing Street confirmed that as well as Sunak, the new foreign secretary, David Cameron, and the King, were all taking separate private jets to a conference aimed at tackling climate change and cutting global emissions.
Defending the decision, the PM’s official spokesperson claimed there was nothing wrong with the UK’s leading representatives travelling to the crucial climate summit this way, as the government is ‘not anti-flying.’
“We are not anti-flying. We do not seek to restrict the public from doing so and it’s important the UK has strong attendance at COP28, given we continue to be a world leader in tackling climate change,” said the spokesperson.
No 10. also insisted that the plane Rishi Sunak was using operates on 30 percent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and carbon offsetting will be used to minimise its impact on the environment.
The announcement was not received well among climate campaigners and opposition parties.
Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, described Sunak and Cameron as members of a “super-rich elite who are super-heating the planet.”
“A short trip on a private jet will produce more carbon than the average person emits all year,” she continued.
Caroline Lucas said the “excessive climate-wrecking private flights amount to pumping jet fumes in the face of those on the frontline of this crisis.” The Green MP is also in support of a new levy on private jets to “make them think twice before hopping on the next one.”
…
Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reads 1% RICHEST 100% CLIMATE DENIER Green Party calls for a UK ban on private jets
The Green Party has called for a ban on all private jets taking off or landing at UK airports. They say this form of transportation, favoured by a super-rich elite, is the ultimate symbol of ‘climate inequality’ where the richest 1% of the population produce as much planet warming pollution each year as 5 billion people making up the poorest two-thirds of the global population.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time. Co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer, said:
“As the COP28 climate conference gets under way this week, governments can no longer ignore the very large elephant in the room – that it is a super-rich elite who are super-heating the planet.
“Private jets are the favoured form of transport by this super-rich elite and are the ultimate symbol of the ‘climate inequality’ that is not only leading to the breakdown of our climate but is also deeply unfair. A short trip on a private jet will produce more carbon than the average person emits all year.
“The Green Party wants the UK government to challenge the grotesque inequality driving climate breakdown. By pledging to impose a ban on all private jets taking off or landing at UK airports, the government would send a clear message to global leaders at COP28 that the super-rich cannot be allowed to continue with their lavish and destructive lifestyles at the expense of the rest of the global population.
“The Green Party also wants to see the introduction of a carbon tax which would target the biggest polluters, and a wealth tax on the super-rich. Oxfam has calculated that taxing the world’s richest 1% fairly would cut carbon emissions equivalent to more than the total emissions of the UK.
“While the richest can use their vast wealth to cocoon themselves, the poorest have nowhere to hide from the impacts of climate chaos. COP28 needs to ensure those with the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis end their destructive ways. And we must redistribute the price paid by the heaviest polluters towards helping those on the front line of climate breakdown and to hasten the transition to a fairer, greener world.”
