Top scientists blockade UK and international private airports to demand end to obscene private jet use

Global protest calls for ban on private jet flights and tax on frequent flyers to help fund climate loss and damage reparations

Link to Global images https://xrb.link/wz1WMk1U

This cross-continent, co-ordinated, non-violent action, which involves hundreds of activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Scientist Rebellion (SR),  is part of a bold new international campaign dubbed "Make Them Pay" and the campaign intends to target private airports in other countries across the globe.

Scientists and young climate campaigners will barricade multiple private airports across thirteen countries, including Farnborough Airport  and London Luton Airport’s Harrods Terminal, to demand a total ban on all private jets and a tax on frequent flyers.

The protestors are calling on world leaders gathering this week at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for the UN's 27th annual climate change conference (COP27), to take action to end the use of private jets, which are 5 to 14 times more polluting per passenger than commercial planes and 50 times more polluting than trains. Campaigners are also demanding a tax on those who fly frequently to cut emissions and help raise funds to pay for the loss and damage caused by climate breakdown.

Activists at Farnborough - Europe’s premier private jet facility - are today (10th November) locked-on at the iconic Whittle Gate, whilst at London Luton, the luxurious Harrods Aviation terminal is the backdrop for the protest. Climate campaigners are lighting coloured flares, chanting slogans and waving banners proclaiming “Ban Private Jets”, “Tax Frequent Flyers” and “Make Them Pay”

The campaign is targeting the climate destroying, jet-setting life-styles of billionaires and multi-millionaires which are exacerbating climate breakdown and condemning the global majority to a lifetime of poverty.

Today’s international action is taking place as COP27 enters its fourth day  at Sharm El Sheikh – a day designated as both Science Day and the Youth and Future Generation Day.

The protests also seek to highlight a proposal made by the Least Developed Countries Group  - which represents the most climate-vulnerable countries at COP27 - for a global aviation tax to fund climate finance, address loss & damage, and adaptation in their countries. Multiple national Citizens’ Assemblies have shown that ordinary people support the “Make Them Pay” campaign demands.

Research has shown that just 1% of the global population produces over a half of total aviation emissions while 80% of the global population have never actually stepped foot onboard an aircraft.

Dr. Gianluca Grimalda, social science researcher, and a member of the Scientist Rebellion, said: “It is obscene that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can fly their private jets tax free, while global communities starve. It’s only fair that wealthy polluters pay the most into climate loss and damage funds to help the most vulnerable countries adapt.” 

Finlay Asher, an aviation worker said: “Aviation represents the pinnacle of climate injustice and emissions inequality, I can’t stand by watching the emissions from my industry continue to grow and contribute to the climate carnage wreaking havoc around the world, private jet sales are booming we're utterly failing on economic and climate justice”

Youth climate campaigner Hallie said: “The future of humanity and civilisation as we know it is at play at COP27. It’s Code Red for Humanity.” and youth activist Becca concluded “Private flights are costing us the Earth and are flying us headlong towards extinction.  Private jets must be banned. Climate Reparations Now.”

– ENDS –

EDITORS NOTES

Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
To learn more about XR’s three demands please visit the Global website at https://rebellion.global/about-us/ & in the UK visit https://extinctionrebellion.uk/the-truth/demands/

Scientist Rebellion
Scientist Rebellion are scientists and academics who believe we should expose the reality and severity of the climate and ecological emergency by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. Unless those best placed to understand behave as if this is an emergency, we cannot expect the public to do so. Some believe that appearing “alarmist” is detrimental - but we are terrified by what we see, and believe it is both vital and right to express our fears openly.
To learn more visit: https://scientistrebellion.com

COP27
The Conference of the Parties official website https://www.cop27.eg/

MakeThem Pay Campaign
Campaign website: https://makethempay.info/

Least Developed Countries  - Aviation / Loss and Damage / Climate Adaptation
https://www.ldc-climate.org/
Vulnerable countries demand global tax to pay for climate-led loss and damage
https://www.ldc-climate.org/press_release/ministers-from-the-least-developed-countries-meet-in-dakar-to-discuss-the-groups-climate-change-priorities-ahead-of-cop27/
https://unfccc.int/topics/adaptation-and-resilience/the-big-picture/what-do-adaptation-to-climate-change-and-climate-resilience-mean


Citizens Assemblies recommendations on private jets and frequent flyer taxes
Multiple national Citizens’ Assemblies have produced such recommendations for the aviation sector, including:


Aviation Inequality
The MASSIVE Inequality of Flying (Part 10: Sustainable Aviation)

Flying is the fastest way we can burn fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a highly unequal activity as only 2% to 4% of the global population flew internationally in 2018, and only 1% of world population emitted 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Private jets are even worse as they are 5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes (per passenger), and 50 times more polluting than trains (https://www.transportenvironment.org/...)
Moreover, 1% of the global population produces over a half of total aviation emissions while 80% of the global population have never actually stepped foot onboard an aircraft

The Polluter Elite

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/elon-musk-new-private-jet-gulfstream-g700-11563321.html

https://simpleflying.com/bill-gates-private-jet-collection/

https://www.therichest.com/luxury/amazon-air-inside-jeff-bezos-insane-150-million-private-jets/


CODE RED FOR HUMANITY

Video message by UN Secretary General at the WGII AR6 press conference

IPCC adaptation report ‘a damning indictment of failed global leadership on climate’

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112852


Scientist Rebellion on Climate Change, Inequality and Resistance.

There is universal scientific consensus that climate change is caused by GHG emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuels in activities such as transport, heating, production. Historically, emissions have been marked by strong inequalities, both within and between countries. The US and Europe alone have produced about 50% of GHGs, even if the share of their world population is only 17% (Ritchie, 2019). Sub-Saharan African countries, with roughly the same amount of population, have produced only 4% of total emissions  (Chancel et al., 2022) but are most vulnerable to seeing their land becoming completely uninhabitable by 2070 (Xu et al., 2020). 

Moreover, wealthy people emit a much larger amount of GHGs than the average world citizen. The typical person in the top 1% of the global wealth emissions distribution emits hundreds of times more GHGs than the average person in the bottom half of the emission distribution (Chancel et al., 2022). 

XR and SR citizens and scientists say that stopping these outrageous disparities in emissions is not only a moral imperative. It is also the most efficient way to contain emissions and avoid the most nefarious consequences of the incoming eco-climate breakdown. Banning private jets and yachts and introducing taxes on luxury consumption are examples of essential measures that policy-makers at the COP27 should implement immediately.

XR and SR practice civil resistance against the current model of economic development, which is leading us to a “collective suicide”, as vividly stated by UN Secreterary General Antonio Guterres. XR and SR citizens and scientists are aware that their action will break the law and that they will be put under arrest for these actions. Nonetheless, they think that civil resistance is necessary for societies to switch toward emergency mode, albeit past the eleventh hour.

References:

Armstrong McKay, David I., Arie Staal, Jesse F. Abrams, Ricarda Winkelmann, Boris Sakschewski, Sina Loriani, Ingo Fetzer, Sarah E. Cornell, Johan Rockström, and Timothy M. Lenton. "Exceeding 1.5° C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points." Science 377, no. 6611 (2022): eabn7950.

Barros, B., & Wilk, R. (2021). The outsized carbon footprints of the super-rich. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 17(1), 316-322.

Chancel, L. Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (2022). World Inequality Report: . https://wir2022.wid.world/

IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D. McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, J. Malley, (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. doi: 10.1017/9781009157926

Ritchie, H. (2019: Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions?, Our World in data: https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

Steffen, Will, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs et al. "Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet." science 347, no. 6223 (2015): 1259855.

Wallace-Wells, D. (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, Crown InternationalXu, C., Kohler, T. A., Lenton, T. M., Svenning, J. C., & Scheffer, M. (2020). Future of the human climate niche. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(21), 11350-11355.

Extinction Rebellion stops work on aviation fuel pipeline to Heathrow

A Child's coffin is buried in the ExxonMobil Southampton to London Pipeline trench representing the fate of children suffering and dying because of the climate and ecological emergency
A funeral is held for our childrens future


Press Release : Extinction Rebellion stops work on aviation fuel pipeline to Heathrow. 

Extinction Rebellion South East UK

Photographs, please click here

Livestream from around 10.00am and available afterwards
https://www.facebook.com/XRSouthEastUK/
Updates on twitter https://twitter.com/XrSouthEastUK

For Immediate Publication


— START —

Funeral cortege of eco-protestors invade site to dig grave and mourn the climate destruction that the project will wreak across the globe.

Work on the new 97km aviation fuel pipeline from the Southampton Fawley Refinery to London Heathrow is being disrupted today (25th June) by climate protestors digging a grave and mourning the grim prospects for the future of life on Earth if prompt action is not taken to stop the use of fossil fuels.

To the heartbeat of a single drum, protesters walked solemnly in a dignified procession to where a funeral service was conducted at Naishes Lane, Church Crookham in Hampshire. A child’s white coffin was interred, signifying the loss of children’s futures across the world should the Government fail to act on the climate and ecological emergency. There must be no new fossil fuel infrastructure.

The activists are demanding that work on the pipeline, which will increase the volume of aviation fuel to Heathrow airport, be stopped because it is inconsistent with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions. Flying is the fastest way to burn climate damaging fossil fuels.

At the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow last December the UK government emphasised the need to reduce the aviation sector’s contribution to climate change as essential, yet they plan to grow air traffic 60% by 2050; a completely unsustainable prospect and against the advice of the UK Climate Change Committee. 

Climate change is real. The facts have been known for decades by ExxonMobil, whose subsidiary Esso Petroleum Ltd, is constructing the pipeline. Exxon has denied the overwhelming scientific consensus on man-made climate change since the 1960s,  responding by financially sponsoring climate science denial. They have continued to exploit and profit from oil and gas despite knowing the harm they are causing to people and nature. The immediate damage to nature as a result of the construction works is readily visible in the South East as a swathe of destruction is carved across woodland, country parks, open spaces and disturbingly across the globally threatened heathland of the Thames Basin Heaths, a habitat rarer than rainforest.

Hannah Shelley, 32, an Actuarial Pensions Consultant from Farnborough said
“We’ve got to stop this pipeline. Once you've seen the evidence, you know that flying is the fastest way to fry the planet. Things are going to change, mother nature will make sure of that, but it'll be better if we take action first to stop the worst of the chaos climate breakdown will bring."

Deborah Elliott, 63, a Business Travel Manager said
“After 40+ years in the travel industry I’ve seen the changes - families used to have just one holiday a year. Then those richer families added more flights; a ski trip, a weekend break, half term holidays or a stag/hen do abroad. The plans to grow air traffic 60% by 2050 is nonsensical as only the wealthiest will benefit, causing carbon emissions and climate change which will affect the poorest amongst us most. And, Exxon know the science, the damage and continue to push their products”

Danielle McHallam, 33 a Sales Manager from Farnborough said
"The world is dying before our eyes and I'm here because protest seems to be the only way to get my voice heard and soon the new police bill may deny me even that. I’ve made a no-flight pledge. People must stop flying"

Climate concern is high right across society, with polls from around the world demonstrating that governments have a clear mandate to make the changes needed to ensure that we leave a habitable world for coming generations. This is particularly so in the UK where 80% of people see the climate crisis as a global emergency.

We’re at a crucial moment in history. Our climate is breaking down and life on Earth is dying: accelerated by our economic system and supported by politicians. But, together we can change this, Join us.
Sign up to learn more about our Summer Uprising which starts on 16th July.
https://xrb.link/s6L3VB5mt6

You are invited. All are welcome.

Notes for Editors:

XR South East Campaigns
https://xr-southeast.uk/stop-the-southampton-to-london-heathrow-pipeline/


XR South East Press
https://xr-southeast.uk/press/

XR South East Social Media
https://linktr.ee/xrsoutheastuk

Unicef : Uniting for Global Food Security conference in Berlin  24th June 2022"
As is always the case, none of this is the responsibility of children and yet, they pay the highest price”
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-executive-director-catherine-russells-remarks-uniting-global-food-security


COP26 Declaration : International Aviation Climate Ambition Coalition
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cop-26-declaration-international-aviation-climate-ambition-coalition/cop-26-declaration-international-aviation-climate-ambition-coalition

Public Support for Action on Climate Change
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/01/cop26-polling-data-is-overwhelming-people-want-leaders-to-act

The Massive Inequality of Flying - the fastest way to burn fossil fuels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW_hH3xCiAY

Naishes Lane, Church Crookham
https://www.naisheslanesangs.co.uk/

Thames Basin Heaths
https://www.tbhpartnership.org.uk/


Extinction Rebellion's Immediate Demand : Stop the Fossil Fuel Economy

https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2022/01/23/xr-uk-strategy-2022/

NO NEW FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENT

NO NEW FOSSIL FUEL LICENCES

END FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES NOW

Investment: Since the Paris Agreement, fossil fuel lending has increased every year and could surpass $1trn by 2030. The financial sector, along with governments, is the key enabler of an economic model built on causing harm.

Licences: The government must commit to end new concessions, licensing or leasing rounds for oil and gas production and exploration and to set a Paris-aligned date for ending oil and gas production and exploration on all territory over which they have jurisdiction.

Subsidies, the UK is one of the worst of the OECD-member nations, calculating that it gave on average £16 billion a year to support fossil fuels in 2017–19.  

That’s £43,835,616 per day – over £300 million a week – taken from our tax, and given to murderers.

About Extinction Rebellion

Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken. Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:

1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Extinction Rebellion barricades Europe's premier private jet facility near London.

PRESS RELEASE    21 May 2022

STRICTLY EMBARGOED FOR PRIOR RELEASE

Link to images below, available from 7.30am Saturday 21st May 2022 and throughout the day
https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news/search?tagId=6287a77655c6330012b0e1c7

Videos and Livestreams taking place from around 8.30am. Available to view afterwards.
https://www.facebook.com/XRSouthEastUK/​​​​​​

Press contacts:

XR South East Media Team : xrsoutheastmedia@gmail.com


Social Media : #FlyingToExtinction  : #PrivateFlightsCostTheEarth : #StopPrivateFlightsNow

Updates on social media
https://twitter.com/XrSouthEastUK  :  https://www.instagram.com/xrsoutheastuk/


Extinction Rebellion blockades Europe's premier private jet facility near London.

Eco-activists barricade Farnborough airport to demand end to private flights and tax-free fuel for the rich

Protest comes as world’s political and business elite prepare to fly by private jet to the Davos World Economic Forum

Extinction Rebellion is blockading the key entrances to Farnborough Airport today (21 May)  to demand the UK government stops private flights now, because the rich and powerful are flying us all to extinction.

The protest comes as world leaders, influential business executives and selected billionaires prepare to fly out by private jet to meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where climate action is supposedly at the top of the agenda.

Yet Davos is reknowned as the world's largest annual gathering of private jets, highlighting the sheer hypocrisy of the political and business elites attending this annual event.

Flying is the fastest way to burn fossil fuels and aviation fuel is exempt from any taxes almost everywhere on the planet, in stark contrast to the price paid for fuel at UK pumps.

In protest against this gross abuse of privilege by private flyers,  Extinction Rebellion is blockading key airport entrances at Farnborough Airport today with activists locked on to an extraordinary "Tableaux of Extravagance",  numerous jet fuel barrels and atop a huge tripod.

Other protesters, from across the South East of England and further afield, are at the iconic Whittle Gate with flags and banners proclaiming Flying To Extinction; Private Flights Cost The Earth; Stop Private Flights Now.   

The 30,000 private flights to and from Farnborough Airport each year carry an average of just 2.3 passengers with each passenger being responsible for the emission of nine times as much carbon as an economy flight to the US and 20 times that to Spain.

Despite a key recommendation of the Climate Assembly UK to ban polluting private jets and helicopters, Farnborough Airport has been given permission to increase flight movements to 50,000 a year and has set it's goals on unsustainable expansion.

A £35 million ($47 million) hanger is scheduled to open in 2024 doubling the available temperature controlled hangar space plus a new partnership with UK-based Vertical Aerospace aims to offer a luxury four-passenger eVTOL aircraft service.


All this, as private jet use overall has seen growth rates of up to 25% whilst ordinary UK citizens are having to choose between heating and eating.

Finlay Asher, 31, aircraft engineer from Glasgow said:  "Aviation is the pinnacle of climate injustice and emissions inequality...  and private aviation is the absolute peak of those injustices"

Danielle McHallam, age 33, a protester from Farnborough added: “I cannot continue to sit by and watch the rich and powerful benefit from untaxed aviation fuel whilst those on low incomes are struggling to pay their energy bills or fill up their cars; 57% of the cost to fill up a car is paid in fuel duty whilst aviation fuel is not taxed at all! 

“The continued overuse of private jets just underpins the breakdown of the social contract in today’s society, where the ‘elite’ can continue to operate ‘business as usual’ without any regard for the environmental or social damage they are causing."

Mike Grant, 61, a former serviceman, from Rosewell near Edinburgh said: "Davos brings together the world’s largest annual gathering of private jets, a hypocrisy of the worst order from so-called business and societal leaders when climate action is supposedly at the top of their agenda"​​​​​​

Dr. Ines Smyth, 72, a development and humanitarian worker from Oxford explained:
"Because of my work I travelled frequently by plane. I used to think this was justified by the nature of my job but then I started to question that. I flew on regular flights, but the justifications for private jet use are very few indeed given they're 10 times more carbon intensive than airliners.

“Many people, like myself, have stopped or limited their flying already but the recent warning from the UK Met Office that we have a mere 50 per cent chance to stay within 1.5 warming in the next 5 years makes it obvious that much more must be done about aviation. Let's start by imposing a fuel tax for private jets and then ban them all together."


Teresa, 59, a charity worker, from Oxford said
“Now is the time that every single one of us has to step up and demand the changes that are needed if we, and future generations, are to have a future”

One of the key recommendations made to the government by the Climate Assembly UK in its report The Path to Net Zero is to ban polluting private jets and helicopters. They also called for frequent fliers and those that fly further to be made to pay more. The government has shown no sign of acting on either demand.  Now, a damning report commissioned by the AEF published on 16th May condemns the UK Government’s ‘Jet Zero’ plans as "techno-optimism" putting emissions targets at risk by reliance on uncertain solutions.  COP26 President Alok Sharma MP acknowledged earlier this week that failure to act on the promises made at the Glasgow COP26 climate summit last year would be “an act of monstrous self-harm”

Aviation has contributed more to global heating than entire continents and the need for climate justice must be recognised. Overall 80% of the world's population have never flown, and it is the uber-rich of the wealthiest countries that cause the most harm as the people of the majority world suffer the most from the climate crisis. The UK Government holds the presidency of COP26 and has the responsibility to show leadership, the Prime Minister must act immediately to stop the harm and start by taking the first step:
Stop private flights now, they are costing us the Earth.


Notes for Editors:

Link to images below, available from 7.30am Saturday 21st May 2022 and throughout the day
https://show.pics.io/xr-global-media-breaking-news/search?tagId=6287a77655c6330012b0e1c7

Videos and Livestreams taking place from around 8.30am. Available to view afterwards.
https://www.facebook.com/XRSouthEastUK/​​​​​​

Press contacts:

XR South East Media Team : xrsoutheastmedia@gmail.com


Social Media : #FlyingToExtinction  : #PrivateFlightsCostTheEarth : #StopPrivateFlightsNow

Updates on social media
https://twitter.com/XrSouthEastUK  :  https://www.instagram.com/xrsoutheastuk/


Key facts about private flights


World Economic Forum - Davos


Farnborough Airport - Hampshire,, South East UK

Countering Farnborough Airport’s greenwash on Sustainable Aviation Fuels SAF 


Other references and resources:


About Extinction Rebellion
Time has almost entirely run out to address the ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices, with human extinction also a possibility, if rapid action is not taken. Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.

Extinction Rebellion’s demands are:

  1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
  2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
  3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.