A non-public jet is landing over the snowy mountains of St. Moritz in Switzerland. Private jet emissions, which have a disproportionate impact on the environment, were found to have greater than doubled in Europe in 2022.
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A non-public jet aviation boom shows no signs of slowing.
Evaluation published Thursday by environmental campaign group Greenpeace showed the number of personal jet flights in Europe last 12 months rose by a whopping 64% to succeed in a record high of 572,806.
Private jet emissions, which have a disproportionate impact on the environment, were found to have greater than doubled in Europe in 2022, exceeding the annual per capita carbon emissions of 550,000 European Union residents.
Greater than half (55%) of the private jet flights in Europe last 12 months were ultra-short journeys below 750 kilometers (466 miles), Greenpeace said, noting that these were trips that might have been taken by train or ferry as a substitute.
It comes at a time when Europe is within the grip of a severe winter drought and shortly after the region’s driest summer in a minimum of 500 years. Scientists warned in late January that a scarcity of groundwater across the continent meant the water situation was now “very precarious.”
“The alarming growth of personal jet flights is entirely at odds with all of the climate science that tells us to bring down CO2 emissions immediately with a view to avert total disaster,” said Klara Maria Schenk, transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s Mobility for All campaign.
“Reducing oil-powered transport immediately is a no brainer, starting with a ban on energy-wasting ultra-polluting private jets that provide no value for people, yet burden them with harmful emissions, toxic microparticles and noise, harming our climate, environment and health,” Schenk said.
The evaluation found that the countries with probably the most private jet flights in Europe last 12 months were the U.K., France and Germany.
The most well-liked destinations for personal jet flights in Europe in 2022 were the French Riviera city of Nice, France’s capital of Paris and Switzerland’s second-most populous city of Geneva.
Rising demand
Greenpeace said the research, which was conducted by Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft, was based on data provided by aviation analytics company Cirium. It assessed all private flights departing from and arriving in European nations from 2020 through to 2022 and separated these trips by 12 months, route and aircraft type.
Some small aircraft types with lower than three seats were excluded as these were trips predominantly used for leisure. The info also excludes flights to and from the identical airport and trips to and from airports with out a unique International Air Transport Association code.
Private jet use has been soaring for a while. Indeed, major private jet manufacturers have been racing to maintain pace with the uptick in demand because the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with first-time buyers fueling record sales.
A wealth boom, stronger leisure demand and the gradual loosening of Covid-19 restrictions are a number of the aspects seen driving the rise in private jet demand.
Climate activists from Extinction Rebel, Scientist Rebel and Last Generation block the doorway of the “Milano Linate Prime” fixed-base operator airport facility in Milan on Nov. 10, 2022, demanding the ban of personal jet, tax frequent flyers and introduce taxation of most polluters.
Piero Cruciatti | Afp | Getty Images
Private jet emissions in Europe have soared at a faster rate than business aviation in recent times.
Data from the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment shows that personal jets are as much as 14 times more polluting than business planes per passenger, and as much as 50 times more polluting than trains.
That is because, in only one hour, a single private jet can emit two metric tons of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, the common person within the EU emits 8.2 metric tons of CO2 equivalent over the course of a whole 12 months.
Earlier this month, the world’s leading climate scientists published a “survival guide for humanity,” calling for a deep, rapid and sustained reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This temperature threshold refers back to the aspirational goal of the landmark Paris Agreement.
It’s widely thought to be an important global goal because so-called tipping points turn out to be more likely beyond this level of worldwide heating. Tipping points are thresholds at which small changes can result in dramatic shifts in Earth’s entire life support system.
