By Carole Roberts, Researcher, Carbon Footprint of Transport, UCL; Mark Maslin, Professor of Pure Sciences, UCL; and Priti Parikh, Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and Worldwide Growth, UCL writing in The Dialog.
Rishi Sunak, David Cameron and King Charles are simply three of the greater than 70,000 delegates from practically 200 nations on the newest UN local weather summit in Dubai, COP28. However they’re amongst tons of who could have travelled there by personal jet. Actually, the UK prime minister, overseas secretary and king even travelled in three separate planes.
At COP27 in Egypt final yr, round 315 personal jet journeys occurred. That is a rare statistic, particularly as fewer world leaders attended that COP, as many had been busy at a G20 summit in Bali.
That’s why we arrange a staff of educational specialists to estimate the carbon footprint of journey to this yr’s assembly, COP28 in Dubai, for various modes of transport together with personal jets. We finally wish to empower attendees to make knowledgeable climate-conscious journey decisions.
We additionally in contrast the carbon footprints for the previous three COPs to assist see the place the conferences could possibly be situated with a purpose to dissuade attendees from utilizing personal jets, until completely important for safety. The usage of personal jets final yr – and presumably this yr too, although we don’t but have full information – suggests that is turning into the brand new norm and has moved past simply important world leaders.
Carbon footprint of transport modes
Flying is already one of the crucial carbon-intensive types of journey each resulting from emissions from burning jet gas and since vapour trails assist create excessive altitude clouds which entice extra warmth within the environment. It’s additionally significantly laborious to decarbonise – there aren’t electrical planes we may merely use as an alternative.
Non-public jet journey is essentially the most polluting mode of all, consuming numerous gas but carrying few passengers. French economist Thomas Piketty argues they’re an instance of sophistication inequality and should be tackled if we’re to cope with local weather change.
Their use by high-profile folks clearly undermines the objective of a local weather convention and symbolises a disconnect between environmental considerations and particular person actions and a scarcity of dedication to sustainable practices. This in flip dangers shaping and influencing public opinion. Earlier analysis suggests members of the general public take local weather motion much less critically in the event that they really feel that their leaders usually are not doing their bit.
We began by taking a look at using personal jets for COP27 in Egypt (our outcomes can be found as a preprint forward of formal peer-review). Most personal flights had been short-haul, typically simply an hour between the capital Cairo and the convention venue in Sharm El-Sheikh. Over shorter distances, planes are even much less environment friendly as take off and touchdown burns extra gas in comparison with cruising.
So avoiding quick flights and personal jets is a should. With this in thoughts, we explored a spread of journey choices to get to COP28 in Dubai for individuals from the UK, the place we’re based mostly.
For a journey from London to Dubai, personal jet journey is 11 instances extra polluting than a business plane, 35 instances greater than prepare and 52 instances greater than coach journey (even after factoring in a flight from Istanbul, since you possibly can’t go all the best way to Dubai by prepare or coach). For these flying from the UK, the longer flight to Dubai in comparison with Egypt means emissions shall be increased this yr.
Carbon depth (grams of COâ‚‚equivalent) of transport from London to COP28:
Location of COP
Among the blame for flight emissions should lie with the UN physique which decides the place COP conferences shall be held, the UNFCCC. Dubai is surrounded by battle zones, which block land routes from Europe, Asia and Africa and makes flying there important.
Whereas most delegates will wish to journey sustainability, their actions will rely on the accessibility of different types of journey corresponding to protected land routes and for these coming from additional away not less than the choice of direct flights to minimise their carbon emissions.
On this respect Dubai is an effective alternative as it’s a main airline hub and so there are various direct flights and fewer want for second or inside flights.
Our evaluation highlights the necessity to contemplate very rigorously the carbon footprint implications of journey to COP conferences. Finally policymakers might want to establish host areas for local weather change conferences which may also help to minimise the carbon footprint of the individuals.
Non-public jets are nonetheless not advisable, nevertheless. Their carbon footprint is considerably increased than different types of transport, they exacerbate present inequities at local weather negotiations and ship the fallacious message to the world.
