Participants arriving at the COP29 climate change conference were criticized after twice as many private planes landed at the airport close to the event in one week as compared to the previous year.

The participants of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, are being accused of duplicity for arriving at the event by private jets. Baku International Airport has registered a significant increase in private jet traffic over the past week, prompting sharp criticism from officials and delegates.

The UN’s annual climate conference is being held this year in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan. In addition to politicians, diplomats and opinion makers, the event was attended by the rich and powerful, who traveled to Baku in the hope of meeting the decision-makers. THE The Times analyzed the data of the flight tracking platform FlightRadar24 and found out that a total of 65 private planes landed at the city’s airport in the first week of the conference.

Of these, 45 planes arrived on Sunday and Monday, at the start of the conference. This number is double the data of the same period last year, when 32 private planes were registered at the same location.

From the United Kingdom, Sir Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband arrived at the conference in a government aircraft operated by the British Air Force. About 80 heads of state and a total of about 67,000 registered participants were present on the opening day of COP29, making it the second largest climate conference after last year’s event in Dubai.

Denise Auclair of the Travel Smart Campaign – which calls for reductions in corporate air travel – a The Timestold:“Private jets have a disproportionately large impact on the environment. Per passenger, they are five to fourteen times more polluting than commercial airplanes and fifty times more polluting than trains. The number of private jets arriving at COP29 starkly highlights the contradiction that while participants are fighting climate change, they are arriving by private jet, especially from an equality perspective. A long-haul private plane trip produces more carbon dioxide than the average person emits in an entire year.”

By comparison, during the same period last year, 32 private planes landed in Baku. An estimated 644 private jets arrived at the COP28 conference in Dubai, emitting around 4,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

65 private planes landed at Baku International Airport during the Cop29 climate conference (Image: Getty Images)

Environmental activists accuse the delegates who arrived at the conference by private jet of hypocrisy. On the other hand, many aviation experts defended the decision, saying that it makes more sense for high-ranking people to use a private jet than to choose commercial flights.

Alethea Warrington, a Possible climate protection the organization’s energy, aviation and heating manager a The Timessaid to:“Using a private jet is a terrible waste of the world’s tight carbon budget, as a single trip produces more emissions in a few hours than the average person does in a year.”

Using a private jet is not only an environmental, but also a financial luxury. A short-haul private flight can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, which has sparked new debates about the privileges of the elite.

A recent study analyzed data from more than 25,000 private planes and 19 million flights between 2019 and 2023. It turned out that almost half of the flights traveled less than 500 kilometers, while in 900,000 cases the journey was limited to a distance of only 50 kilometers – on routes that probably had less polluting alternatives.

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