Sky News visited a private jet conference in London to speak to those who use the highly polluting form of transport.
On London’s Park Lane there is a private jet showroom.
You can relax in a section of the cabin taken from an executive airliner, complete with cocoa-cream leather sofas and the plushest of swivel armchairs.
Steve Varsano, founder of The Jet Business, runs me through my brand options if I have an appetite for luxury and at least £10m to spare: the Citation, Gulfstream or Embraer. But he disputes my description.
“I’m allergic to the word luxury because I think corporate aircraft are a business tool. It’s a time machine. 70% of all the passengers that occupy corporate jets are middle management. So it’s really a utility. It’s transportation.”
This week, in the hotel right next door, hundreds of people are gathering to get more money into this exclusive world and more people flying on private jets.
The two-day event is called Corporate Jet Investor 2024 and they invited the Sky News Climate Show to join them.
It is unusual and fascinating to be among hundreds of people who want more of us to step aboard a highly polluting form of transport.
For every passenger mile, on average, taking a private jet results in 10-14 times the greenhouse gas emissions than a scheduled commercial flight.
“Apart from being an astronaut going up in a rocket, there is no way for one person’s action to create so much carbon so quickly,” says Todd Smith, former pilot and founder of Safe Landing which campaigns for greener flying, a just transition for aviation workers and a ban on private jets.
“Private jet use represents the pinnacle of injustice, given that flying is the fastest way to fry the planet.”
It’s this combination of emissions and exclusivity which makes private jet passengers a very popular target. Anyone who steps aboard – Rishi Sunak, King Charles, Bill Gates, Taylor Swift – stands accused of climate crimes and, if they’ve ever uttered a syllable of concern about global warming, hypocrisy too.
But how big is the sector? There are an estimated 22,000 private jets in the world, with 70% of those being in America. In Europe, the UK is the biggest player. The total number of jets has more than doubled since the year 2000.
Every man and woman I spoke to at the conference said they cared about climate change and they have got a plan to reach net zero by 2050.
Their justification rests on three main pillars. Private jets are an essential tool for cash-rich but time-poor business leaders.
Their sector emits just 2% of aviation’s total greenhouse gases (itself 2% of total man-made carbon emissions) so it is being disproportionately vilified.
They are leading the way in using more climate-friendly technologies like Sustainable Aviation Fuels derived from plants, waste materials or even hydrogen.
The problem with sustainable aircraft fuel is that it only exists in tiny amounts compared to the demand from aeroplanes, and all attempts to scale it up are problematic.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/the-climate-crisis-is-putting-private-jet-users-on-the-defensive-13067899