Carbon pollution from private jets has soared in the past five years, with most of those small planes spewing more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in about two hours of flying than the average person does in about a year, a new study finds.About a quarter million of the super wealthy — worth a total of $31 trillion — last year emitted 17.2 million tons (15.6 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide flying in private jets, according to Thursday’s study in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment. That’s about the same amount as the 67 million people who live in Tanzania,Private jet emissions jumped 46% from 2019 to 2023, according to the European research team that calculated those figures by examining more than 18.6 million flights of about 26,000 airplanes over five years.Only 1.8% of the carbon pollution from aviation is spewed by private jets and aviation as a whole is responsible for about 4% of the human-caused heat-trapping gases, the study said.It may seem like a small amount, but it’s a matter of fairness and priorities, said the study’s lead author, Stefan Gossling, a transportation researcher at the business school of Sweden’s Linnaeus University.“The damage is done by those with a lot of money and the cost is borne by those with very little money,” Gossling said.The highest emitting private jet user that the team tracked — but did not identify by name — spewed 2,645 tons (2,400 metric tons) of carbon dioxide in plane use, Gossling said. That’s more than 500 times …
