Most of us don’t get to fly on private jets, but our taxes help fund them

Just a tiny portion of the population flies on private jets, but those jets make an outsized impact on the planet. And though most Americans don’t fly private, they’re helping subsidize those flights through their taxes. That’s according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which lays out these impacts of the private jet industry and what it calls the “high cost of private jet excess.” When it comes to the climate impacts, private jets are particularly polluting. A passenger on a private jet is responsible for up to 14 times the emissions as someone on a commercial flight. And because private jets fly at higher altitudes, the exhaust from those planes creates contrails that are especially good at trapping heat, which warms the planet. This climate effect can be two to four times greater than the impact of CO2 emissions alone. Land of the free, home of the jets Though the U.S. is home to just 4% of the world’s population, the report notes, it’s the site of more than two-thirds of the world’s registered private jets. Sixty-five percent of all private jet operations take place in U.S. airports. This means U.S. private jet flights contribute more than half (55%) …