Up In The Air: From Elon Musk to Rolling Stones, how celebs have recorded 11 years of flying time in one year

The public is often exhorted by celebrities, CEOs and politicians to make sacrifices in their personal lives in order to fight climate change. But did you know that the aircraft of the rich and famous have just since 2022 flown for a combined 11 years? The report, published by The Guardian, analysed public flight data of 200 high-profile individuals including the Rolling Stones, Elon Musk, the Murdochs, and Kylie Jenner. The newspaper used used flight data compiled by TheAirTraffic Database and flight records from OpenSky. It comes a day after an Oxfam study showed that the richest one per cent of the global population is responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the world’s poorest two-thirds. Let’s take a closer look: The Guardian found that the nearly 300 jets which made an incredible 44,739 trips emitted around 415,518 tons of carbon dioxide. That roughly corresponds to the emissions of 40,000 Britons.

A Boeing 767 used by the Rolling Stones was one of the worst emitters of pollution.

The plane, a wide-body craft, released around 5,046 tons of CO2. That would be the equivalent of someone flying back and forth between London and New York City in a commercial airplane 1,763 times.

Lawrence Stroll, the billionaire who owns the Aston Martin F1 team, logged 1,512 trips. Stroll also held the unfortunate record of charting the most trips under 15 minutes. Meanwhile, 39 planes of 30 Russian oligarchs including Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, Leonid Mikhelson, and ex-Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin emitted 30,701 tons of carbon dioxide. Out of every six flights, one was for a short-haul trip – that is 30 minutes or less, as per The Guardian. As per CommonDreams.org, pop princess Taylor Swift seems to have cut down on her use of private planes. This comes after Swift in August received a torrent of criticism after topping a list of celebrities that included Oprah and Steven Spielberg who used private jets. Swift’s representative at the time released a statement calling the list by marketing firm Yard ‘blatantly incorrect’. Still, Swift seems to have course corrected. As per CommmonDreams.org, the pop star’s use of private jets declined from 19 trips per month between January and August 2022 to just two trips afterwards. “Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor bought more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel,” a spokesperson for the pop star told the newspaper. Ban private jets, say activists Still, activists remain outraged and argue that private jets need to be outlawed. The website quoted Greenpeace EU transport campaigner Thomas Gelin in March as saying, “It’s hugely unfair that rich people can wreck the climate this way, in just one flight polluting more than driving a car 23,000 kilometers.”

“Pollution for wasteful luxury has to be the first to go, we need a ban on private jets.”

“While plenty of business is no doubt discussed over golf at Aberdeen, Scotland, or at bird hunting reserves in Argentina (destinations we also documented), this is probably the least defensible form of luxury travel on a warming planet when a Zoom call would often do,” Chuck Collins wrote in Fortune. Max Lawson, who co-authored the Oxfam report, told AFP that while fighting the climate crisis is a shared challenge, not everyone is equally responsible and government policies must be tailored accordingly. “The richer you are, the easier it is to cut both your personal and your investment emissions,” he said. “You don’t need that third car, or that fourth holiday, or you don’t need to be invested in the cement industry.” [caption id=“attachment_13212312” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Pop star Taylor Swift seems to have cut down on her use of private planes following a torrent of criticism. AP[/caption] The reports come as world leaders prepare to meet for climate talks at the COP28 summit in Dubai later this month. Fears are growing that limiting long-term warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius could soon be impossible to achieve. The key message, according to Lawson, was that policy actions must be progressive. “We think that unless governments enact climate policy that is progressive, where you see the people who emit the most being asked to take the biggest sacrifices, then we’re never going to get good politics around this,” he said. These measures could include, for example, a tax on flying more than ten times a year, or a tax on non-green investments that is much higher than the tax on green investments. With inputs from agencies