Despite being the most climate-damaging form of travel, private jet use has reached record highs, yet most flights are exempt from paying a carbon price, and all are exempt from fuel taxes. This must end.
It’s not just rich celebrities – such as Taylor Swift, and the billionaire class arriving at the recent Davos annual gathering of the World Economic Forum that do so in the limousines of the sky – private jet travel has soared to record highs.
This is in spite of the fact that private jets are the most polluting modes of transport, yet they remain among the least regulated under Europe’s climate policies, even as their emissions increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023. While people taking the train pay energy taxes, VAT, and high track access charges, the most polluting passengers in the sky are often exempt from carbon pricing, and all are exempt from kerosene taxes. This imbalance is not just deeply unfair, it is also a missed opportunity to ensure that the wealthiest flyers pay a fair price for their pollution.
The EU Emissions Trading System was designed to ensure that polluters pay for some of the damage they cause. But when it comes to private jets, it falls short. Today, 67% of private jet emissions are not covered by the EU ETS. Many private jets fall below existing thresholds for aircraft weight, emissions, or flight numbers. On top of that, all flights to and from destinations outside the European Economic Area (EEA) are excluded altogether. The result is a system that protects the wealthiest and most polluting flyers while shifting the burden onto everyone else.
Most private jet flights are shorter than 900 kilometres – distances for which cleaner alternatives like rail are already available in the EU. This means that people who fly in private jets can easily shift to trains or other cleaner alternatives.
Tax the rich
Across Western Europe, a clear majority is convinced that private jet passengers should pay more. Yet current policy does the opposite. Wealthy passengers flying private or long-haul are shielded from responsibility for the climate damage they cause.
Private jets emit 5 to 14 times more carbon dioxide per passenger-kilometre than commercial flights, while business class seats on commercial planes can be up to five times more carbon-intensive than economy seats on the same plane.
Treating these flights the same under carbon pricing makes no sense. In our recent study, we propose multiplying the carbon price by four for private jets, reflecting their disproportionate climate impact. This multiplier is based on fuel consumption per hour, seating capacity, and a comparison of the 15 most common private jets in Europe with a typical commercial aircraft.
The true cost of pollution is far higher than what any airline currently pays. Recent research estimates the social cost of carbon at $185 to $417 per tonne of CO2-equivalent, which is around two to four times higher than the ETS price of €83.79 (December 2025). The gap between damage and responsibility is vast and growing.
Down to earth solutions
Applying carbon pricing to private jet traffic would also raise significant revenue for governments, which they can use to invest in climate action and a just transition.
Properly pricing private jet emissions on the EU ETS could, by 2030, raise, according to unpublished Carbon Market Watch calculations that were performed during the writing of our previous study:
- €304 million annually under the current scope of the EU ETS by pricing emissions from private jets within the EEA at four times the market price
- €756 million annually by including all private jets flying within and from the EEA with the same price multiplier
- €2.2 billion annually by including all private jet flights flying within and departing flights from the EEA, as well as their non-CO2 effects, applying the same price multiplier
Non-CO2 effects include water vapour, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and soot particles. These can lead to greenhouse processes, such as ozone formation and condensation trails (‘contrails’), the white strips often left by aeroplanes in the sky. These can have a climate-warming effect up to three times higher than carbon dioxide.
Importantly, potential ETS revenue is not the only way to make high flyers pay for their pollution. Governments could raise significant sums through aviation fuel taxation.
A question of fairness
Private jets are among the least sensitive to price increases. Therefore, truly reducing their emissions would require restricting their use. Short of this, a strong, targeted carbon price would at least help fund climate solutions that help ordinary people directly. The money raised could also contribute to lowering aviation emissions over time, for example, by financing the development of hydrogen and electric aircraft, as well as high-speed rail infrastructure.
A small portion of the revenue could be used to incentivise low-cost but impactful solutions. For example, avoiding contrails can significantly lower aviation’s climate impact. Small adjustments to flight routes or altitudes can reduce the non-CO2 effects by up to 73%, with only minimal increases in total operating costs (+0.08%) and fuel use (+0.11%). In 2019, less than 5% of flights accounted for around 80% of Europe’s total contrail warming.
This is low-hanging fruit and relatively inexpensive compared to the white elephant projects currently being funded. In 2024, the EU gifted €100 million to 53 airlines in the form of ETS allowances for their use of “sustainable” aviation fuels – so far only unscalable and unsustainable bio-kerosene. These fuels already benefit from zero-rating under the EU ETS, which provides them with an additional financial support of around €25 million.
Aviation must pay for its climate impact, and the most expensive and polluting flights must no longer be the least regulated. In times of deepening income inequality, it is not radical to make millionaires and billionaires flying private jets pay their fair share.
It is common sense.
It raises much-needed revenue.
It is long overdue.
