The climate crisis is putting private jet users on the defensive
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.
Steve Varsano speaks to Sky’s Tom Heap
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.
The land demand for plant-derived fuel is eye-watering: powering all the planes in America on biofuel would take all the cropped land of America.
We don’t have the waste volumes and many feedstocks, like waste fats, are more efficiently used to make truck diesel. Synthetic fuels made with green hydrogen would demand huge chunks of our renewable electricity production.
Matt Finch is from the Europe-wide clean transport campaign group, Transport & Environment, one of the critics who, alongside Todd Smith and speakers from the Green Party, was invited to speak and challenge the delegates at this conference.
He says business aviation is not yet doing enough to cut carbon and governments are getting impatient.
“I think regulations will come down the line. If the sector doesn’t move fast enough, it will be regulated out of existence.”
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Holger Krahmer who runs the European Business Aviation Association scorns such regulation.
“These decisions and discussions are completely irrational because corporate aviation is 2% of [total aircraft] emissions. So if governments ground business jets or eliminate business aviation, you simply will not measure that.
“At the end of the day, every gram of CO2 counts for the same so, for the climate, it’s more relevant to ask the question: what is the contribution of the sector as a whole?”
Private jets are icons of wealth and power – the power to conquer distance on your own terms. But as the climate crisis is increasingly demanding tough choices from all of us, these super-polluting, super-rich jet-setters are on the defensive.
The Climate Show With Tom Heap airs at 3.30pm and 7.30pm on Saturday and Sunday on Sky News
World
Body of missing rabbi Zvi Kogan found in UAE – as Israeli PM says he was murdered in ‘antisemitic terror incident’
The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The talks were rocked from the start by the incoming presidency of climate denier Mr Trump, the moment Argentina’s team were recalled back to Buenos Aires by their right-wing president and a controversial letter that sent shockwaves through the United Nations.
Pic: AP
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
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Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
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The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
Protesters at the summit in Baku. Pic: AP
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The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
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‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike
Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
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