The private jets of the rich and famous are becoming a growing burden on the environment. New research has shown that the annual carbon emissions from private aviation increased by 46 percent between 2019 and 2023, significantly contributing to the growing climate crisis.
Private jets are used by 0.003 percent of the world’s population, yet the new study found they pumped out 15.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in direct emissions in 2023 – that’s more than the output of small European countries like Slovenia or Lithuania.
The results also showed that individuals who use private aviation produce almost 500 times more CO2 in a year than the average person.
Emissions from private jets peak around big international events, like the 2022 FIFA World Cup and – ironically – the COP28 climate talks in Dubai. At least 644 private flights were linked to COP28, producing 4,800 tonnes of CO2. The 2022 FIFA World Cup was even worse, associated with 1,846 private flights that produced 14,700 tonnes of CO2.
Flight tracker data of private jets shows heavy traffic around North America, as well as Europe, and parts of Asia and South America.
Image credit: Stefan Gössling et al.
Travel for leisure, not just business, is a major driver of the trend. The study found private aviation peaks in summertime around popular holiday destinations, plus the journeys tend to occur around weekends (arrivals on Fridays, departures on Sundays). This led the researchers to conclude that “travel motives are leisure-dominated.”
The findings were gathered by researchers at Linnaeus University in Sweden and the Munich University of Applied Sciences in Germany, together with a colleague based in Copenhagen, Denmark. The team looked at data on 18,655,789 private flights flown between 2019 and 2023, and then calculated the CO2 emissions of each flight by combining the fuel consumption of the aircraft with its flight duration and trajectory.
Some other interesting findings from the project: Almost half of all flights (47.4 percent) were shorter than 500 kilometers (310 miles) in length – less than the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Private aviation is heavily concentrated in the US, where 68.7 percent of private jets are registered despite being home to just 4 percent of the world population. The Miami area alone accounts for 6 percent of all private jet departures.
Brazil has the second-highest number of private aircraft (927 jets), followed by Canada (770), Germany (630), Mexico (534), and the UK (522).
Map of all private flights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Image credit: Stefan Gössling et al.
Another grim irony is that most private aviation is used by just 256,000 or so “ultra-high net worth” individuals, owning an average of $123 million and a combined wealth of $31 trillion. This significant minority of privileged humans is making a massively outweighed contribution to climate change, a problem that will overwhelmingly affect less affluent people and countries.
“Mission reductions are particularly difficult to achieve under scenarios of continued growth in economic output or wealth, and policies focused on CO2 will disproportionately affect less affluent population groups,” the study authors write.
“Given difficulties in reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement that are evident in most countries, a central question is how further growth in emissions can be limited. Private air transport illustrates the policy conundrum of addressing the role of the affluent, as policymakers are reluctant to focus on the wealthy and powerful,” they add.
The study is published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
