“We hope that making these thefts public will help create a social momentum, to demand concrete political actions”, confided the two creators of @laviondebernard at 20 minutes July 22. Like others that have emerged in recent months on social networks, this account tracks and makes public the journeys made by private jets owned by billionaires and/or large French groups. A way to expose the carbon footprint of the super rich, who use and abuse this mode of transport.
These initiatives caused a lot of ink to flow this summer, to the point that @LaviondeBernard’s wish now seems well on the way to being realized. In the columns of ParisianSaturday, Clément Beaune, Minister Delegate for Transport, thus ensured floor on tracks of regulation of the flights in private jet. A file that he wishes to put on the table of the Council of Ministers, at the start of the school year, as part of the “sobriety plan” that the government is preparing. Then put it on the agenda for the next meeting of European transport ministers in October.
Private jets boosted by Covid-19
On his side, Julien Bayou, co-president of the environmental group in the Assembly, wants to go even further. He estimates, in the columns of Release, it’s time to ban private jets. He intends to launch a consultation with a view to tabling a bill in the fall.
For Jo Dardenne, aviation manager at Transport & Environment (T&E), European federation of NGOs active in mobility, it was time to look into this carbon impact. Especially since the use of these devices is expanding, she recalls: “The Covid-19 had the effect of a boost. Some of the passengers who had previously taken business class switched to business aviation to continue flying during the health crisis. “In August 2020, the private jet sector had already returned to its pre-crisis level when the rest of the planes were still mostly grounded,” she continues.
This is all that must be avoided for T & E: “that the use of the private jet, an ecological and social aberration, becomes normality”. Until finally nailing these planes to the ground? Jo Dardenne does not go that far, any more than Olivier Del Bucchia, co-founder and president ofAero Decarboa collective working on the energy transition of the aerospace sector.
An experimental laboratory for low-carbon aircraft?
If both call for the sector to control its gross emissions in the short term in order to be part of a sustainable trajectory, they also agree on the opportunity it could seize to become the head of the gondola of the decarbonization of the air sector. A kind of experimental laboratory. “Decarbonizing technologies (electricity and hydrogen, for example) are more quickly accessible on small and short-range aircraft, such as private jets, explains Olivier Del Bucchia. In this context, they could play a role in accelerating the development of these technologies which would benefit aviation as a whole. »
(electricity and hydrogen for example)
If both call for the sector to control its gross emissions in the short term in order to be part of a sustainable trajectory, they also agree on the opportunity it could seize to become the head of the gondola of the decarbonization of the air sector. A kind of experimental laboratory. “Decarbonizing technologies (electricity and hydrogen, for example) are more quickly accessible on small and short-range aircraft, such as private jets, explains Olivier Del Bucchia. In this context, they could play a role in accelerating the development of these technologies which would benefit aviation as a whole. »
Do we still need to find the mechanisms that will make it possible to ensure that business aviation does indeed contribute to this, to the extent of its financial capacities? That was the whole point of the report. from T&E of June 2021entitled Can the super-rich boost zero-emission aviation?. The first recommendation of the NGO is to set 2030 as the deadline beyond which only private jets powered by battery electric or green hydrogen would be authorized to fly on routes of less than 1,000 km per hour. inside the EU. Not nothing, recalls Jo Dardenne: “In 2019, one in ten flights departing from France was on board a private jet, and half of these 10% were over distances of less than 500 km. »
A tax commensurate with their carbon impact?
But T & E’s battle plan does not start in 2030. The NGO is now advocating the introduction of taxes on private jet flights in line with their carbon impact. “It is one of the weaknesses of the system in Europe, regrets Jo Dardenne. Business aviation is included in the European carbon market, but only companies that emit more than a certain amount of CO2 or that perform more than a certain number of flights are included. As for the tax on kerosene, “it remains non-existent in many EU countries and often very low in the others,” she continues. In France, for example, the tax rate on private jet fuel is 35-50% lower than gasoline, which gives a tax advantage to wealthy people compared to those traveling by car or train. »
T & E therefore recommends to rectify the situation by raising the tax on kerosene, but also by introducing a new one for each private jet flight departing from the EU. “In an amount similar to that established in Switzerland, namely at least 3,000 euros, offers the NGO in its report. This would raise several hundred million euros that can be reinvested in the development of new aeronautical technologies. »
Ask anyway the question of the use of the jets
But Olivier Del Bucchia questions the real dissuasive effect that these taxes would have, “which will affect a wealthy clientele and a priori therefore less sensitive”. “You should not consider that paying an environmental cost allows you to avoid the gross reduction of your emissions, he points out. The challenge is not only the advent of low-carbon aircraft but to limit, from now on, emissions from aviation as well as from all economic sectors. »
This involves reducing air traffic. A first step (timid, lamented the NGOs) has been taken, in France, with the Climate and Resilience law of 2019. It prohibits air flights to destinations accessible by train in less than 2h30. According The Parisian, Clément Beaune would have in his lines of thought that of declining the principle of this ban on private jets, by prohibiting their use when there is a rail alternative or commercial flights. Olivier Del Bucchia like Jo Dardenne are very favorable to it.