Private planes cause relatively high carbon dioxide emissions, according to an analysis by Oxfam. According to this analysis, global private aircraft emissions amounted to 16 million tons of carbon dioxide last year.
Oxfam said that private planes emit more carbon dioxide in two seconds than a member of the poorest 50 percent of the world's population does over the course of an entire year.
More than 55,000 private planes took off from German airports last year, and together they released more than 182,000 tons of carbon dioxide, according to figures presented by the same source.
These planes also emitted more carbon dioxide in half an hour than the average person in Germany produces over the course of an entire year.
Oxfam estimates average annual per capita emissions in Germany at about 9.9 tons of carbon dioxide. The organization did not compare per capita emissions resulting from private aircraft travel with those resulting from commercial flights.
According to Oxfam, only about 250,000 people use private planes, which is equivalent to 0.003 percent of the world's population.
“The very wealthy are pushing the world towards climate collapse,” the organization said. She added that a minority of the population emits more than its fair share; This is through luxury consumption patterns, among other things. Oxfam called for taxes on large wealth.
Globally, Claudia Kimfert, an economist specializing in energy affairs, said that the 10 percent of the richest people account for nearly half of carbon dioxide emissions. While the share of the poorest half of the world's population does not exceed 8 percent.
Kimfert added in statements reported by the German Tagesschau website: “Whoever travels a lot and over long distances clearly causes the emission of much larger amounts of carbon dioxide.”
As for Leonie Petersen, who is responsible for the social and environmental transformation file at Oxfam, she believes that “there is nothing that clearly symbolizes the climate-damaging lifestyle of the super-rich, as is the case with private jets.”
The Tagesschau website pointed out that in addition to the use of private planes by the wealthy and its impact on the environment, the wealthy also own larger homes and consume larger quantities of goods and services.
It is noteworthy that private aircraft are also considered an “anachronism” from the perspective of transportation policy, as their use is no longer in line with the requirements of sustainable transportation. According to an analysis conducted by Greenpeace in Austria, a large proportion of private trips take place over short distances, and even very short distances, such as trips between Paris and Geneva, London and Paris, and Vienna and Salzburg.
The analysis indicates that more than half of the distances flown by private aircraft in Europe are short trips of less than 750 kilometers, including nearly 40 percent of very short flights of less than 500 kilometers, according to the Frankfurt Rundschau newspaper.
According to the Tagesschau website, inequalities also appear in the consequences of global warming. People with higher incomes are often better able to protect themselves from extreme weather events.
In this regard, Leonie Petersen, responsible for the social and environmental transformation file at Oxfam, said: “Richer people, for example, often live in areas that are less vulnerable to climate change-related disasters, such as drought or floods.”
