In one hour, private jets emit as much CO2 as one person does in their entire lifetime

Private aviation "flies" too much:emissions in 2023 reached 15.6 million tonnes of CO2.

• Private jet industry threatens efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:in 2023 15.6 tonnes of CO2 emitted.
• In 4 years, the flights mapped by a study on private aviation were 18.6 million and the jets used were over 25 thousand.
• From the Davos Economic Forum to the Cannes Film Festival, major events are the catalyst for private flights.

Not just commercial flights, obviously super-polluting:even that of private jets, a rapidly growing sector, represents a great and enormous challenge to combat climate change with the risk, in the event of a lack of regulation to reduce its scope, of seeing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions compromised.Just one fact above all: an hour spent in flight on board a large private jet pollutes how much a person pollutes on average over their entire life.It is the alarm that arises when reading the study Private aviation is making a growing contribution to climate change, published on Communications Earth & Environment by Stefan Gössling, Andreas Humpe and Jorge Cardoso Leitão, which shows that between 2019 and 2023 both the private jets in circulation increased (precisely by 6.45 percent per year) and the distances traveled (even +11 .31 percent per year), and emissions (+9.93 percent per year).

Only last year, 2023, did private aviation issue 15.6 million tons of CO2, equal to approximately 3.6 tons of CO2 per flight: a figure that represents approximately 1.7-1.8 percent of overall emissions from commercial aviation.A number that might seem small at first glance, but which is absolutely significant if we consider that private jets transport only a very small percentage of the population, and that each flight brings with it many fewer people than a scheduled flight.

All the numbers on private jets 

The study analyzed 18.6 million flights of private aviation over the course of four years, using data from the ADS-B Exchange platform, a global flight tracker.The research examined 25,993 private jets, associating them with 72 aircraft models and their average fuel consumption.The final data is disheartening:the overall emissions from private aviation are increased by 46 percent between 2019 and 2023, a growth rate that worries climate experts.A particularly worrying fact that emerged from the study is that almost half of all private flights (47.4 percent) they cover distances less than 500 km, often accessible by train or car with a much lower environmental impact.And even the 4.7 percent of flights are less than 50 km: practically these private jets are often used for very short trips, which could be avoided.

A question of privilege

68.7 percent of private jets in circulation, well over half, are registered in the United States:all obviously for the exclusive benefit of a rich minority.Therefore, a real issue of environmental justice:the owners of these jets in fact belong to the richest segment of the global population and private planes are often used for trips linked to luxury events and international meetings, such as the World economic forum in Davos or the Cannes Film Festival, two of the most impactful events among those intercepted by the study, which attract significant air traffic, contributing to emissions, and which bring together for different reasons some of the richest and most famous people on the planet.

The sector's growth is fueled by increasing demand, with more expected 8,500 new corporate jet deliveries which will be carried out within the next decade.However, there are currently insufficient regulations to control emissions from the private aviation sector, which remains a gray area in international climate policy.At most there are some local initiatives: Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, for example, has decided to ban private jets on its runways.In Italy, the fourth European country for private jet traffic in Europe with 152 take-offs per day, last year a bill was presented to ban the use of private jets and aircraft for traveling short routes, which can be traveled by train in less than 240 minutes, extend theexcise duty on aviation kerosene to private jets and aircraft, now incomprehensibly excluded, and introduce a tax on passengers, of 400 euros each, and a progressive tax on the cargo transported.But the proposal is destined not to be approved. Scholars also identify a series of possible solutions:theintroducing a stricter carbon tax for private flights, for example, encouraging the use of sustainable fuels and promoting greener transport alternatives such as high-speed trains.However, the sustainable fuels sector is still far from becoming a viable large-scale solution for the private aviation sector.