CJI London protestors claim private jets ‘a privilege we can’t afford’

Private jets have been slammed as “obscene” and “a privilege that we cannot afford” by the climate change activists who stormed into our CJI London 2023 conference last week.

After protestors from Fossil Free London and Just Stop Oil disrupted the conference’s opening session – Is aviation under attack? – on Tuesday, February 7th, Corporate Jet Investor invited a spokesperson from the climate change coalition to respond to our questions.

A spokesperson for Fossil Free London told CJI: “We disrupted your conference because our climate is in crisis, and people around the world are already suffering and dying from the impacts of this crisis, particularly people in the Global South who have done least to cause this crisis and are now suffering from extreme weather, flooding, drought, heatwaves, storms and forest fires.

“Nature is being wiped out by rising temperatures. Scientists are warning us that we are getting incredibly close to dangerous and irreversible tipping points, like melting glaciers and the dieback of the Amazon, which will put all of our lives at risk.”

Private jet aviation is “an obscene waste of carbon and it should not exist”, continued the spokesperson. “There is absolutely no justification for private jet flights, in a world where ordinary people are struggling to afford enough heat and energy and food just to survive. It is completely unacceptable for anyone to produce the level of emissions that come from private jet flights.” Online meetings, public transport, electric vehicles are all alternatives to private flights, the spokesperson added.

Josie, one of the protestors (who declined to give her surname), told CJI: “The people attending this conference are grotesquely out of touch with the suffering already being experienced by millions in the Global South – and the suffering that’s likely to be experienced by billions more if we don’t drastically reduce our carbon emissions. Yet they spend their time discussing investment opportunities in fancy hotels, away from any scrutiny or accountability.

“We disrupted their conference yesterday to demand an end to the private jet industry, and to be clear that we will not tolerate the destruction of our planet, our homes, and our livelihoods so that a tiny minority can continue to live in luxury.”

Read the spokesperson’s full answers to our questions below.

Meanwhile, if you would like to put a question (or make a point) about business aviation to the Fossil Free London/Just Stop Oil, please email it to this email address. We will also invite an industry representative to respond to the protest coalition’s specific allegations against business aviation. 

 Fossil Free London: ‘Why we disrupted CJI London 2023’

1. Why did Just Stop Oil disrupt our conference?

We are Fossil Free London, although some of us are also part of Just Stop Oil.

Humanity and nature are in an extremely grave situation. There is ‘no credible pathway’ in place to limit global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Average temperatures around the world are almost at 1.2° and we are already seeing multiple extreme weather events, including prolonged drought and heat in Europe last year. 60 UK homes burnt down in record temperatures of over 40°.

People in the Global South are suffering in a hugely disproportionate way to the minuscule amount they have contributed to CO2 emissions. The floods in Pakistan covered a third of the country last year and the water still has not receded in some places, months later. How Pakistan floods are linked to climate change – BBC News. People have lost their homes, are living in tents and are suffering from water-borne diseases.

UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres said at COP27 in 2022: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.”

Owning or using a private jet in a time of worsening climate crisis is the most obscene act of privilege and it’s a privilege that we cannot afford. The people attending this conference are grotesquely out of touch with the suffering already being experienced by millions in the Global South – and the suffering that’s likely to be experienced by billions more if we don’t drastically reduce our carbon emissions.

Yet they spend their time discussing investment opportunities in fancy hotels, away from any scrutiny or accountability. We disrupted their conference to demand an end to the private jet industry and to be clear that we will not tolerate the destruction of our planet, our homes and our livelihoods so that a tiny minority can continue to live in luxury.

We invite you to meet and talk with us to explain why private jet flights must end now.

2. What’s the target of your campaign – aviation in general or business aviation and why?

Private jets are turbo charging climate breakdown. They are up to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per person. 

We are targeting the private jet industry because it is an obscene waste of carbon in this age of worsening climate crisis. To call it business aviation is a misnomer – these are luxury flights by the wealthiest few, causing pollution, which is already contributing to fires, floods, heatwaves and droughts around the world, which are killing people.

3. How do you rate industry attempts to mitigate climate impacts via Sustainable Aviation Fuel or carbon offsetting schemes?

This is greenwashing and we do not accept either of these as a solution. For the reasons why they do not work and the only answer is to immediately end all private jet flights powered by fossil fuels, see these excellent explainers from Stay Grounded.

4. What about business aviation’s contribution to the European economy? (It employs 374,000 people in Europe (directly and indirectly) and generates 87bn euros in economic output annually. Plus 70 life-saving or medical flights per day (on average).

These inflated numbers from the total aviation industry are not a genuine indication of the economic and environmental costs and benefits of private jets. The UK has a huge tourism spending deficit and aviation gets away with billions in tax breaks, including paying zero tax on kerosene.

Of course, no one is objecting to medical flights, which are not done by private jet. It is ridiculous to raise this and an attempt to divert attention away from the key issue – the pollution is unacceptable and must end now.

5. Final thoughts?

We disrupted your conference because our climate is in crisis, and people around the world are already suffering and dying from the impacts of this crisis, particularly people in the Global South who have done least to cause this crisis and are now suffering from extreme weather, flooding, drought, heatwaves, storms and forest fires. Nature is being wiped out by rising temperatures. Scientists are warning us that we are getting incredibly close to dangerous and irreversible tipping points, like melting glaciers and the dieback of the Amazon, which will put all of our lives at risk.

The industry is an obscene waste of carbon and it should not exist. There is absolutely no justification for private jet flights, in a world where ordinary people are struggling to afford enough heat and energy and food just to survive. It is completely unacceptable for anyone to produce the level of emissions that come from private jet flights. Online meetings, public transport, electric vehicles are all alternatives to  private flights. Invest in clean energy or clean transport or something else that doesn’t threaten our entire world and everyone in it.

As more and more people see that fossil fuels pose an existential threat to all of us, there will only be more public opposition to private jets and the grotesquely high emissions they produce, all to serve only the most privileged few.

One of the conference sessions was about resisting the threats to the industry. The actual threat is the one the private aviation industry imposes on human survival.

The emissions from luxury aircraft are the worst – they are needless and excessive –  and they mean billions of people are going to starve, or else have their homes transformed into barren scrub desert around them and have to migrate.

This massive global instability will mean mass migration, war and starvation. Is this a price worth paying for your jet set lifestyle?

You seem to think that your choice to fly luxuriously around the world is more important than the right of billions to survive. If you fly, we burn. If you fly, we drown. If you fly, we die.

The outgoing CEO of Shell said the only thing that would stop their climate wrecking is the climate movement. The same is true of private aviation.

We demand a ban on private flights.

You should be talking to people whose health and lives are already being destroyed and who stare into an uncertain future of drought, uncertain food supplies, and temperatures humans cannot survive in.

Johan Rockstrum, director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, tells us that by 2070, if we continue with emissions, as many as 3b people will live in uninhabitable zones.

According to Julian Allwood, Cambridge University, by the end of the century, there is also a high probability that countries in Africa and Asia near the equator will not be able to get food through growing it or having enough money to buy it.

1bn people will starve. 3bn in uninhabitable places. 1bn more starving to death. Where will all these people go? They will move North to find food and habitable land.

Cambridge researchers predict a certain world war in the lifetime of anyone born now or before the end of the century.

Let’s talk about luxury.

Philosopher Henry Shue, spoke about the difference between luxury and subsistence emissions: “The former happen because rich people like to wallow in the pleasure of their rank, the latter because poor people try to survive.”

Peasants in India using coal to cook bread or at night getting the dim light from a dying bulb fed by a coal-fired power plant are confined in their choices because the alternative for poor people locked in the fossil economy, as Malm bluntly explains, “might be no stove and no lamp.”

The rich man on his yacht, on the other hand, has the opportunity to scrap the yacht and cease his profligacy and waste, but chooses not to.

This wanton disregard is aggravated by the fact that the hypermobility of the rich is what frees them from having to bother with the consequences, as they can always shift to safer locations.

Luxury needs to be the first to go, to protect the survival of human life.

The private jet industry must, and will, be shut down.

Josie, one of the activists who disrupted the conference, said: “Owning or using a private jet in a time of worsening climate crisis is the most obscene act of privilege, and it’s a privilege that we cannot afford. People are already suffering and dying from climate breakdown – their homes are flooded, their water is polluted – and the private aviation industry is responsible.

 “The people attending this conference are grotesquely out of touch with the suffering already being experienced by millions in the global south – and the suffering that’s likely to be experienced by billions more if we don’t drastically reduce our carbon emissions. Yet they spend their time discussing investment opportunities in fancy hotels, away from any scrutiny or accountability. We disrupted their conference yesterday to demand an end to the private jet industry, and to be clear that we will not tolerate the destruction of our planet, our homes, and our livelihoods so that a tiny minority can continue to live in luxury.”

Top: This morning, Extinction Rebellion and affiliated groups blockaded the entrances to Luton Airport’s Harrods Aviation and Signature private jet terminals. The protesters demand the UK government takes urgent action to ban private jets, tax frequent flyers and make wealthy polluters pay. The protest is said to be part of a global coordinated action launched last week by climate activists across 11 countries, targeting sites in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and US. Image by Extinction Rebellion.

Above: In addition to protests at London Luton Airport, protests have already taken place in Los Angeles,  Brussels and Seville, Spain yesterday and  in  Stockholm, Sweden. Image by Fossil Free London.