Quite recently, celebrity Kylie Jenner faced backlash after an Instagram post flaunting her and partner’s private jets, as people felt that celebrities as herself were causing unnecessary and significant CO2 emissions by making the decision to take private jet flights. In fact, Kylie Jenner has taken flights as short as 17 minutes, and other celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather, Drake, and Mark Wahlberg are known to have taken flights on private aircraft as short as 10 minutes (1). Therefore, I wondered: how harmful are these flights on private jets on the environment?

To start off, CO2 gas, which is emitted on plane flights, is harmful to the environment as it traps heat in the atmosphere when it is released. CO2 emissions are a main factor to climate change, the phenomenon of increasing global temperatures, and climate change is definitely harmful to the environment. Therefore, we can assume that the higher the amount of CO2 emissions, the more damaging it is to the environment.

According to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), “2.52kg of carbon dioxide is emitted for every litre of aviation turbine fuel burned,” and they suggest to multiply the CO2 emission by 1.9 to account for the other gases released that are not CO2 but still trap heat in the atmosphere when released (2). Therefore, a flight that uses 5000 liters of fuel would result in 23.9 tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases emitted.

From these numbers, it is obvious how private jets can have a significant impact on the environment. However, what separates the impact of private jets to that of any other commercial aircraft is the number of people on each plane. Riding a private jet means that you inevitably cause more gas emission, as there isn’t going to be as many people on the private jet compared to the number of people on a commercial aircraft. In other words, “because [private jets] carry so few people they are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes, per passenger, and 50 times more polluting than trains” (1). As a result, private jet gas emissions exceed those of the entire country of Denmark by “[emitting] more than 33m tonnes of greenhouse gases” (1). Additionally, as Dr. Debbie Hopkins of the University of Oxford claims, “‘"A huge amount of fuel is used during takeoff and landing of a plane, no matter how many people you have on board. So an already polluting mode of transport (commercial aviation) becomes even worse (with private jets)’” (2). This is especially true for celebrities who take short and frequent flights. 

Therefore, the data does reflect that private jets are indeed causing significant harm to the environment through its avoidable gas emissions. So, what should be done about them? A potential solution is banning them altogether, as journalist Akin Olla suggests. If that isn’t possible, he also suggests that “levying severe taxes on private jet flights could at least help offset the damage and put funding toward creating the kind of public infrastructure that we will need to withstand the climate crisis” (3). However, I believe the bare minimum we can do is educate and condemn celebrities and other wealthy individuals even if it means one less unnecessary flight that harms the entire planet.

Sources:

1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/kylie-jenner-short-private-jet-flights-super-rich-climate-crisis

2: https://www.bbc.com/news/59135899