Private Jet Emissions in Europe - Lifestyle for Me But Not For Thee

While I'm no fan of Greenpeace, a recent study commissioned by the environmental activists examines an issue that should concern all of us given that the global ruling class insists that we are living in a climate emergency that requires those of us who sweat while we work to make unprecedented changes to our lifestyles.

 

Here is the cover page of the study:

 

 

The group that completed the study, CE Delft, built a database for the study which included information on all private flights departing from and arriving in the EU27 nations including Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom by year, route, type of aircraft and carbon dioxide emissions for each flight.  the following flights were excluded from the analysis:

 

1.) Flights using aircraft with less than 3 seats.

 

2.) Flights to and from airports without an IATA code.

 

3.) Flights that arrived at the same airport from which they departed.

 

These flights were excluded since many small aircraft are used for leisure flights, training purposes or parachute jumping rather than business.  Medical and military flights are included in the study but only if they used aircraft that are typically used in business aviation.

 

Let's look at the data by year keeping in mind that the carbon footprint of of an EU resident was equivalent to 6.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year per person in 2019:

 

1.) 2020 - 118,756 private flights emitting 354,690 tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

2.) 2021 - 350,078 private flights emitting 1,637,623 tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

3.) 2022 - 572,806 private flights emitting 3,385,538 tonnes of carbon dioxide

In total, private jet emissions exceed the annual per capita carbon dioxide emissions of 550,000 EU residents.

 

What is particularly interesting is the distribution of flight distances by year:

 

1.) 2020: the largest category of flights is between 251 and 500 kilometres with the second largest category being flights between 0 and 250 kilometres.  In 2020, 58 percent of all private flights were used for a distance of less than 500 kilometres:

 

 

2.) 2021: the largest category of flights at 26 percent of all flights is between 251 and 500 kilometres with the second largest category at 18 percent being flights between 0 and 250 kilometres.  The percentage of flights that exceeded 3001 kilometres rose from 3 percent in 2020 to 6 percent in 2021:

 

 

3.) 2022: the largest category of flights at 24 percent is between 251 and 500 kilometres with the second largest category at 16 percent of all flights being flights between 501and 750 kilometres.  In total, 55 percent of all flights were between 0 and 750 kilometres in 2022.  The percentage of flights that exceeded 3001 kilometres rose from 6 percent in 2021 to 9 percent in 2022:

 

Here are tables showing the most used flight routes in 2020, 2021 and 2022 along with their emission excluding routes that are mainly used for medical or military reasons or are being used by airlines offering scheduled flights aboard business jets:

 

 

It is interesting to see the huge number of private jet flights of less than 100 kilometres in length and their emissions as shown here:

 

1.) 2020 - 833 flights emitting 983 tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

2.) 2021 - 2178 flights emitting 3501 tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

3.) 2022 - 3093 flights emitting 4953 tonnes of carbon dioxide

 

In all three years, the most used flight route under 100 kilometres was London to Farnborough and return with a total of 2238 flights over the three year period.  For those of you who are not award, Farnborough Airport is "the largest and most pre-eminent business aviation airport in the United Kingdom". 

 

What we need to keep in mind is that Europe has an advanced passenger train infrastructure that covers many of these destinations multiple times per day.  For example, the Amsterdam to London and return route, one of the top ten private jet routes, has a 8 daily direct train connections that take around 4 hours one way.  A train journey between Basel and Zurich in Switzerland takes less than a hour, covers 74 kilometres and there are 78 trains daily.

  

If you wish to learn more about how the global ruling class lives and the impact of their private jet lives on the climate, I would suggest that you read the report which you can find by clicking here.  In the report, the authors provide a breakdown of business jet flights for each nation in Europe along with the accompanying impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Let's summarize with this recent news:

If there's one thing that we've learned over the past three and a half years, it's that the ruling class adheres to the "do what I say, not what I do" and the "lifestyle for me but not for thee" philosophies.  Rules are made for the serfs, not for the rulers and they love nothing more than our complete and unthinking compliance and for the sacrifices that we are willing to make for their collective benefit.