Pet dogs are just as polluting as private planes, a luxury airline executive has claimed, amid mounting industry scrutiny.
Patrick Hansen, the head of Luxaviation, told a Financial Times summit that the carbon footprint of private jets must be “put into perspective.”
He claimed that one of the company’s customers emitted just 2.1 tons of carbon dioxide a year, about the same as the emissions of three dogs.
Hansen was referring to estimates by carbon footprint consultant and writer Mike Berners-Lee, who said a Labrador Retriever has an annual carbon footprint of around 770kg.
Luxaviation did not immediately respond to questions from The Telegraph about the distance or number of trips made by the customer used in its example.
Berners-Lee told the Financial Times that the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 figure seemed “suspiciously” low, and probably only represented short flights made in small planes.
A private jet can emit 2 tons of CO2 in an hour, according to estimates by the environmental NGO Transport and Environment, compared to the 8.2 tons of CO2 emitted by an average person in Europe.
Private jets are 50 times more polluting than trains
A 2021 study by the group found that private jets were 5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial jets per passenger and 50 times more polluting than trains.
Emissions from private jets increased 31% between 2005 and 2019, even as concerns about the impacts of climate change became widespread. Its use has skyrocketed since the pandemic, rising 14% between 2019 and 2022, as wealthy people sought to avoid the new restrictions and hassles of air travel.
Rishi Sunak is among several public figures who have faced criticism for his use of private jets. The prime minister undertook £500,000 worth of private jet trips in less than a fortnight earlier this year, prompting criticism from Liberal Democrats that the government was “shredding its own green promises”.
Taylor Swift, the pop star, was forced to release a statement clarifying that her private plane was regularly lent out to others after a Twitter account calculating the impact of the emissions from various celebrity flights went live. would go viral.
Climate activists in Europe have focused on the use of private planes with disruptions at airports, including the one in Geneva on Tuesday. Last year, hundreds of protesters prevented private planes from taking off from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Five months later, the airport announced that it planned to ban private jets by 2026.
The use of private planes “is not going to disappear”
Hansen told the Financial Times summit in Monaco that the use of private jets “would not go away, because they provide a time service” to wealthy people.
He added that the industry was aware of the criticism and was working to reduce the impact of its emissions, although the scarcity of sustainable aviation fuels meant they were not a practical solution.
However, he said that sometimes it is better not to take planes for shorter trips.
“We tell our customers, don’t fly from Paris to Lyon.”
The UK Climate Change Citizens’ Assembly, convened by a cross-section of society, called for a ban on private jets and a frequent flyer tax in its recommendations in 2020.
