
Superyachts can bear a similar burden on the planet, as professors from Indiana University called it “by far the worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint,” in an interview with DW.Īn analysis of the top 20 billionaires in the world found that they emitted an average of 8,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2018, of which two-thirds is caused by superyachts. “What you’re doing is you’re burning many hundreds or thousands of gallons of jet fuel to save a carload of people or a couple of carloads of people a few hours.” What’s the climate impact of a superyacht? “They’re doing it in a generally less efficient way than if they were sitting in a coach seat in a 777 or any one of the conventional commercial airliners,” said Murphy. For comparison, one of Mayweather’s 10-minute flights produced one ton of CO2, whereas the EPA reports that the typical car will emit 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide annually.Įxperts like Colin Murphy, deputy director of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy at the University of California at Davis, told the Washington Post it’s important to look at the frequency of these short trips, and how often these planes carry little to no people. In fact, according to a Twitter account that uses data to track celebrities’ private jets, former boxer Floyd Mayweather and celebrity Kylie Jenner have used their planes to take flights under 20 minutes long, for trips that would only take a few hours by car. Meanwhile, celebrities have emitted an average of more than 3,300 metric tons from their private jets alone so far this year, according to Yard. The average person produces about 7 metric ton of CO2 annually. This is compared to a January Gallup Poll which found that the average American took 1.4 air trips in the past 12 months, with 62% making no trips at all. Read more: Matt Damon Wants You to Care About Water And according to the clean transport campaign group Transport & Environment, 10% of all flights that departed France in 2019 were private aircrafts. In the U.K., surveys in 20 found that just 15% of adults were responsible for 70% of the flights.


What’s the climate impact of a private jet?Īviation produces just under one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, accounting for 2.5% of global CO2 pollution.īut while aviation remains a great contributor to the climate crisis, a small number of people are responsible for a large bulk of the impact.
