Private Jets and Celebrity Travel Endangering Our Net Zero Pledge

Our writer takes a look at the damage caused to the environment by the celebrity private jet culture.

Anna Nix
19th March 2024
Image by Dylan Agbagni from Pixabay
With the year 2050 nearing on us and with that our pledge to reduce our carbon footprint to net zero, a question has come up concerning the ethicality of celebrities flying private.

Surely, one would think that having as many resources as these millionaires (and billionaires) have, they would do everything in their power to offset their carbon emissions and set an example for the rest of us.

The use of private jets has seen an increase by 20% since the pandemic, owing to the fact people tried to avoid crowded spaces. Yet, the pandemic is long gone, and flying private is still a living trend. With most celebrities setting an example of opting for a private jet rather than a commercial flight, more people are prone to aspire to an ideal that is not as idyllic as can seem at first glance.  

For example, Taylor Swift has recently been in the news (although when is she not?) for the insane amount of carbon emissions she is feeding into the atmosphere due to her recent world tour. A student, Jack Sweeney, has been tracking her flights and the amount of CO2 she produces on his X (formerly Twitter) account. An act for which he might get sued by Swift’s team, who are arguing his actions are that of a stalker and he is endangering Swift’s safety.

Based on the @SwiftJetNextDay X account, she has produced 19 and 12 tonnes of CO2 emissions in two days – taking a flight from Tennessee to LA and then back the next day. To put these numbers in perspective, if one person recycles everything they possibly can for one year - which let’s face it, most people still fail to do anyway - they would save 903.5 kg of CO2 emissions. So, Swift has basically discarded someone’s recycling journey for over 30 years in two days.

It is important to note that her team has assured the public that Swift has purchased double the amount of carbon units to compensate for her travel. One carbon unit is an equivalent to one tonne of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere. However, the carbon units purchased, and their value, is often overestimated and since the team failed to disclose what they have actually purchased, it is hard to estimate how well has Swift actually balanced her carbon footprint.

To not sound incredibly biased, Swift is not the only celebrity who contributes more carbon footprint than the average European (1,000 times more than the average European in 2022, in fact). Most celebrities still use private jets, instead of flying commercial, and therefore producing insane amounts of carbon emissions.

In 2022, Kylie Jenner has enraged social media users by taking a flight that lasted 17 minutes, a journey which would have taken her 40 minutes by car. 17 minutes of her flight, which equalled to one tonne of CO2 emissions, is more than one person can save by recycling for a whole year. Elon Musk has also been one of the celebrities tracked by Jack Sweeney’s X account. (His original X account @CelebJets has since been suspended by Musk). Musk has recently taken a two and a half hour flight from San Jose, California to Austin, Texas, emitting 13 tons of CO2 emissions according to the @ElonJetNextDay X account.

Of course, each coin has two sides, and one can find celebrities which do sit on the other side, and instead of taking a private jet, they buy a seat on a commercial flight. Some of these celebrities, according to TheThings, are Blake Lively, Paris Hilton and Prince William among others.

One can just hope that the rest of these millionaires will wake up and stop contributing to a serious threat that climate change is. With that said, let’s hope they wake up before it’s too late.

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