How much CO2 does a private jet emit vs a car?

Personal planes have significantly higher emissions than other modes of transport. An average journey in one produces CO2 equivalent to driving a petrol car from Paris to Rome 16 times.



A private jet emits significantly more CO2​ per hour than a car does in an entire year. On average, a light private jet emits roughly 2 metric tons of CO2​ per hour of flight. In comparison, the average passenger car emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2​ per year. This means just 2.3 hours in a private jet equals a full year of driving for the average person. When looking at "per-passenger" impact, the gap widens further because private jets often fly with only 2–4 people. A flight from New York to Washington D.C. (roughly 1 hour) would emit more carbon per person than a car-pooling group making the same trip ten times over.

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To save a few hours of time for a few passengers in a vehicle or a couple of cars, “you're doing is burning many hundreds or thousands of gallons of jet fuel.” The typical private jet burns around 5,000 gallons of fuel per hour. That's the equivalent of about 400 passenger cars.

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Finally, the plane is the most polluting means of transport and the one that generates the most greenhouse emissions.

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Planes Remain A Problematic Means Of Transport Air traffic represents less than 2-3% of the global CO2 emissions whereas road traffic accounts for around 10% of these direct emissions. Still, planes remain among the most polluting means of transport, together with cars.

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Now, compare that to cars. It may shock you to learn, but the odds of someone dying in their lifetime in a car accident is mind-bogglingly low. 1 in 101 people will die in a car accident during their lifetime. Compare that to the 100+ lifetimes you'd have to live to die in an airplane accident.

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