There is outrage after Jeff Bezos’ $65 million Gulf Stream jet led a 400-strong stream of private planes into Scottish environmental summit COP26.
World leaders and dignitaries from all over the globe, including Prince Albert of Monaco and a host of “green” CEOs landed in Glasgow and Edinburgh over the weekend, creating what one Scottish news outlet described as “an extraordinary traffic jam [which] forced empty planes to fly 30 miles to find space to park.”
As President Biden spoke at the anti-global warming conference on Monday, other notables expected to fly in for the summit — billed as a make-or-break moment to take action on limiting carbon emissions — included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Gates and the singer Ellie Goulding.
Matt Finch, of the UK’s Transport and Environment campaign group, told Scotland’s Sunday Mail: “The average private jet, and we are not talking Air Force One, emits two tons of CO2 for every hour in flight.
“It can’t be stressed enough how bad private jets are for the environment, it is the worst way to travel by miles. Our research has found that most journeys could easily be completed on scheduled flights.
“Private jets are very prestigious but it is difficult to avoid the hypocrisy of using one while claiming to be fighting climate change.”
Politicians and the super rich preach to the rest of us how climate change is such an existential threat. However, they all plan to fly their private jets to the Climate Summit to virtual signal on an issue they do clearly to not personally follow.
T&E Research
According to a T&E study, “the impact of private jets in terms of CO2 emissions is ten times bigger than the one caused by commercial aviation and 50 times more severe than trains.”
The study notes: “flying on a private jet is probably the worst thing you can do for the environment,” commented T&E aviation director Andrew Murphy. “And yet, super-rich super polluters are flying around like there’s no climate crisis.”
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