is half of the greenhouse gases from the aviation sector caused by only 1% of the world’s population?

The summer of 2022 and its ecological disasters have reignited the debate on the sometimes frantic use of private jets by the wealthy. While the energy crisis will probably force Western populations to be sober, the deputy La France insoumise Manuel Bombard said he was in favor, on franceinfo Monday August 22, of “forms of prohibition” of private jets before asserting that “1% of the population is responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in the aviation sector worldwide“. It’s true and explains why.

Manuel Bompard refers to a study published in the scientific journal Global Environmental Change. According to the study conducted in 2018, before the Covid pandemic, 11% of the world’s population had flown that year. Among these travelers there are “super transmitters”, people who fly more than 55,000 km per year. These are the people who represent 1% of the world’s population and effectively cause half of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by aviation. Some fly almost daily, including private jets.

Not surprisingly, North America has the most super emitters of CO2, ahead of the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. On average, North American travelers traveled 50 times more kilometers by plane than Africans in 2018. The United States is the country that globally produces the most CO2 emissions among developed countries.

The study specifies that China does not publish its figures; its authors estimate, however, that Chinese emissions are five times weaker than those of the United States.

This study was conducted in 2018, before the Covid crisis which plagued the air sector in 2020 and 2021. The year 2022 is not over and it is not yet possible to know whether air transport has regained the same annual volume as before the crisis. However, we know that in June 2022, air traffic reached 70% of its 2019 level, the last year before the health crisis, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association.