During the COP28 in Dubai there were 1.021 flights on board 404 private jets belonging to tens of politicians and businesspeople participating in the Climate Summit.  Far from being an exception, these figures merely confirm a trend: between 2019 and 2023 the number of private jets increased by 28% worldwide (with an average of 500 flights per hour). Meanwhile, the distance flown by these aircraft increased by 53% while the emissions they generated increased by 46%.

According to a study done by Transport&Environment, private jets are 10 times more carbon intensive than passenger jets on average, and 50 times more polluting than trains. In 2023, a total of 79 airports and aerodromes in Spain registered private jet air traffic accounting for 9.216 direct connections to other airports around the world.

As Pablo Muñoz, the coordinator for sustainable mobility at Ecologistas en Acción says, private jets are the most damaging form of transportation for the planet and the most socially unjust. It is calculated that only 0.003 % of the world’s population uses private jets which, moreover, are exempt from paying taxes on the fuel they consume. While the world’s wealthiest fly on private jets, the entire planet faces the consequences.

Given this situation, for the COP29 in Azerbaijan, together with Ecologistas en Acción, we launched the campaign “Centro de Desintoxicación de Jets Privados” (Private Jet Detox Centre) to denounce the abuse of this form of transportation used by an exiguous minority of the population and to raise awareness about its impact.

Using this Centre, we encouraged politicians, businesspeople and celebrities to detox and shed their addictions to flying on private jets. The Centre was presented as an elite, luxury rehabilitation centre and portrayed different types of users through fictitious testimonies based on real facts and events. At the same time, we disproved through data for instance the fact that private jets are a tool for work. Of the private jet flights on record in Spain in 2023, 35 % took place between June and September, the most frequently used airports being Palma de Mallorca, Madrid, Ibiza and Málaga.

The campaign has a website as well as audio-visual pieces and graphics produced in Spanish, Catalan, Galego and Basque. They were also accompanied by an action on social media where we gave calling cards for the detox centre to different users of private jets.

The campaign calls for the prohibition of private jet flights with the exception of those imperative to cover medical and other similar emergencies, and for the establishment of a tax on kerosene, which has thus far been tax free in the European Union.

The first step to being cured is to acknowledge you have a problem. You know that better than anyone else. We can’t go on this way.