The private jets of the Davos summit emit as much CO2 as 350,000 cars, according to Greenpeace

Greenpeace demands an end to unnecessary private flights by denouncing the “master class in hypocrisy” that involves the more than a thousand private jets who attends the Davos World Economic Forum to be held next week in the aforementioned Swiss town and which generates the same volume of greenhouse gas emissions as the equivalent of 350,000 cars who circulate 750 kilometers daily for a week.

The emissions data have been estimated in a report carried out by the Dutch consultancy Delft for the NGO that estimated that 1,040 private jets flew in and out of airports serving Davos during the week of their last meetingwhich means quadrupling the CO2 emissions from these airports during those days compared to the figures for the rest of the year.

Furthermore, the study indicates that more than half (53%) of the flights made were short-haul, less than 750 kilometers and 38 percent flew less than 500 kilometers. There was even a flight of only 21 kilometers. According to the report, the countries with the highest traffic at Davos airports were Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

The NGO criticizes that the 2023 World Economic Forum will analyze ways to address the climate crisis through bold collective action. For the executive director of Greenpeace Spain, Eva Saldaña, Davos represents “the most perverse of a failed socio-economic system.”

“Elites who try to sell an image of sustainability and that they are there to change the world while concentrating disproportionately obscene wealth and power and benefiting at the expense of the majority of people and the planet, putting life in jeopardy,” he criticizes.

Private jets, “climate bombs”

For her part, the spokeswoman for Greenpeace’s European mobility campaign, Klara Maria Schenk, regrets that the “rich and powerful” who come to Davos to debate behind closed doors about the climate and inequality they use the “most polluting and unequal means of transport that exists” and precisely when Europe is registering the warmest month of January since there are records.

In addition, he pointed out that 80 percent of the world population has never traveled by plane but suffers the consequences of the emissions caused by these “climate bombs that are private jets”.

“The World Economic Forum claims to be committed to the Paris Agreement as this is an unbearable master class in hypocrisy. Private jets must go down in history if we are to have a green future, fair and safe for all. World leaders must lead by example and ban clearly expendable private jets and short-haul flights,” she concluded.