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Private jets polluted more than all flights from Heathrow combined, study finds

Boston Globe

10 hours ago

Boston Globe

Private jets polluted more than all flights from Heathrow combined, study finds

Advertisement The study spotlights the outsize impact of the United States on emissions. Globally, private jets emitted up to 19.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023: Aircraft departing from the United States accounted for 65 percent of global private jet flights, and 55 percent of those gas emissions. That year, private jets polluted more than the total of all commercial flights departing from London's Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest hub. Researchers identified 22,749 private jets by unique tail number that operated over 3.57 million flights. The analysis is the first effort to combine flight trajectory information with publicly available emissions models to allocate private jet activity to specific airports. The study also modeled air pollution, meaning it considered not only greenhouse gases, but also nitrogen oxide pollution and fine particulate matter - both associated with significant human health risks. Researchers found that 18 of the 20 most polluting airports for private jet use are in the United States. And the majority of these flights are short-haul trips, lasting under two hours. Advertisement 'If you look at individual airports that are polluted from private jets, Van Nuys Airport [in Los Angeles] popped out,' Rutherford said. 'This is getting a lot of visibility because it's where the celebrities and influencers are all parking their planes.' Short-haul flights, defined as covering distances less than around 930 miles, account for roughly a third of aviation's annual carbon output. Airplanes burn a significant amount of fuel when taking off and climbing to altitude, making these trips less efficient than longer ones. France imposed a ban on short-haul domestic flights in 2023, but because it was limited to trips within its borders, analysts described the policy's impact as modest. Private jets generate between five and 14 times more greenhouse emissions per passenger than commercial planes, according to the European clean transportation nonprofit group Transport & Environment, and 50 times more emissions than trains traveling that same distance. While private jets often show up in large numbers in big events, from the World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos to the Super Bowl, the United States still ranks higher than other wealthy countries. The new data shows 687 private jet flights per 10,000 people in the United States, compared to just 117 in the United Kingdom and 107 in France. Florida and Texas alone generated 543,815 flights - more than the entire European Union. 'With smaller, private aircrafts, you don't have as many passengers to distribute the emissions across, so you lose some economies of scale,' said Colin Murphy, associate director of the Energy Futures Research Program at the UC-Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, who was not involved in the study. Advertisement 'We have a lot of millionaires and billionaires,' Rutherford said. 'We're a highly unequal society, and so that generates a lot of traffic.' This week dozens of private jets are expected to arrive in Venice for Jeff Bezos's wedding. (Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.) Policy efforts to cut down on emissions from private aviation have largely fallen short. Legislation introduced in 2023 would have raised the federal fuel tax on private planes nearly ninefold, from $0.22 to $1.95 per gallon, but the bill never came to a vote. At the same time, a Federal Aviation Administration program implemented last year allows some owners to remove their flight data from public distribution, making it more difficult to track private aircraft. 'The very important insight is that the global growth in emissions is coming from the top, from more people entering the very affluent classes that can afford private aviation,' said Stefan Gössling, professor of Tourism Research at Linnaeus University and Human Ecology at Lund University, who was not involved in the study. 'That is a trend that is quite powerful and ongoing and will mean that we will not be able to meet our climate goals simply because there's so much growth in the system that we cannot compensate.' Still, researchers say that the data offers a stark picture of an elite mode of travel with an outsize climate footprint - one that has increased its emissions by 25 percent over the past decade. Advertisement 'Private jets are like the canary in the coal mine here for a hyper unequal warming world,' Rutherford said.

Why is India in the bottom 20 when it comes to gender gap?

India Today

13 hours ago

Business
India Today

Why is India in the bottom 20 when it comes to gender gap?

India has once again slipped in the global race for gender equality. In the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum, India ranks 131st out of 148 countries, a fall from last year's 129th spot. The drop comes despite a marginal improvement in India's overall gender parity score, a clear signal that other countries are moving much more worrying is that even within South Asia, India trails behind its neighbours: Bangladesh (rank 24), Bhutan (rank 119), Nepal (rank 125), and Sri Lanka (rank 130). With 64.4 per cent of its gender gap closed, India falls below the global average of 68.8 per cent and the South Asia regional average of 64.6 per cent. First introduced in 2006, the WEF gender gap index tracks gender gaps across four dimensions: economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. India's performance is mixed, with education and health improving but political and economic indicators dragging down the 2025 index shows that no economy has yet achieved full gender parity. Iceland, with a score of 92.6 per cent, has held the top position for 16 consecutive years now, and remains the only economy to have closed more than 90 per cent of its gender gap since gains, economic stagnationadvertisementThere's been real progress in education. India has achieved 97.1 parity in educational attainment and ranks 110th in that category. Girls are going to school and enrolling in colleges at nearly the same rate as boys. In fact, women now make up a majority of graduates in several urban universities. Despite that, the achievement does not translate into jobs or promotions. The boardrooms remain out of reach. Health outcomes have slightly improved, with a better sex ratio at birth and increased life expectancy for women. However, India still ranks low at 143rd on this being the world's fastest-growing major economy, India remains one of the worst performers globally on gender parity in economic participation and opportunity, ranking 144th, ahead of a handful of crisis-ridden nations like Sudan, Pakistan, Women in the Workplace 2025 report found that only one in three hires at the junior level in Indian companies was a woman. As they moved up the ladder, the number of women dropped sharply. The report noted that just 18.2 per cent of board positions in corporate India were held by a growing gap between what women are qualified to do and what they're allowed to do. The WEF report backs this up. India's score on economic participation improved slightly, from 39.8 per cent in 2024 to 40.7 per cent in 2025, thanks to a rise in women's estimated earned income. But even now, Indian women earn about one-third less than men for the same work. And female workforce participation remains dismally women in poweradvertisementEven more worrying is the drop in political representation score, and it is the only subindex to do so this year. The number of women in Parliament fell from 14.7 to 13.8 per cent, and the share of women ministers dropped to 5.6 per cent, down from 6.5 per cent last year. These numbers take India further from its 30 per cent peak in 2019. In short, fewer women are in power today than a year ago.- Ends

As Trump touts tariff deal, China pitches itself as global trade leader

Washington Post

18 hours ago

Business
Washington Post

As Trump touts tariff deal, China pitches itself as global trade leader

TIANJIN, China — On the same day China and the United States were finalizing a framework to guide negotiations in their bitter tariff dispute, Chinese Premier Li Qiang was making his pitch for Beijing as the solution to global trade volatility unleashed by Washington. At the opening of an annual confab of foreign officials, business executives and scholars organized by the World Economic Forum here this week, Li likened the 'confusion and anxiety' in the global economy to the 2008 global financial crisis and vowed that China was here to help.

Chinese battery giant and Tesla supplier CATL is expanding globally: Here's why it matters

CNBC

19 hours ago

Automotive
CNBC

Chinese battery giant and Tesla supplier CATL is expanding globally: Here's why it matters

The world's largest electric vehicle (EV) is going all-in on international expansion and could shake up the EV market in the process with its battery-swapping tech rollout. China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) is a key player in the global transition to more sustainable transport, with a market share in the EV sector of roughly 38%. CATL's clients include global players like Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW, with the firm boasting technology far superior to that of Western competitors. Despite its outsized impact on the EV industry, the company had mostly flown under the radar until May this year, when it launched the world's largest initial public offering (IPO) of 2025 to date in Hong Kong. The IPO raised 41 billion Hong Kong dollars ($5.2 billion), after CATL stocks surged and an over-allotment option was fully exercised. Here is what CATL has in the works following its IPO. Ahead of its public offering, CATL said 90% of the funds raised by going public would be put toward its expansion into Europe, particularly its under-construction factory in Hungary. The company's 7.6-billion-euro ($8.2 billion) investment into the Debrecen battery plant was first announced in August 2022 and is expected to begin production this year. The battery maker has already established a wholly owned manufacturing base in Germany, which first opened in 2023. It has also announced plans to build a battery plant in Spain through a joint venture with Stellantis. CATL's global investments follow a trend of more Chinese EV companies, including auto giant BYD, shifting to Europe amid aggressive competition and price wars in the domestic market. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, on Thursday, Ni Jun, CATL's chief manufacturing officer, said the brutal discount war would not end without intervention from Beijing. He added that, if a big player continues to cut prices, it could lead to other competitors being driven out of the market and create a monopoly. While CATL's Jun did not name any companies, CATL's main competitor BYD announced price cuts in late May. Tight margins and overcapacity in China have been a driving force in CATL's Europe push, said Tu Le, founder and managing director of Sino Auto Insights, adding that the company is already supplying "virtually every" EV maker in China, limiting domestic growth opportunities. But not everything in Europe has been easy. The bloc placed punitive tariffs on made-in-China EVs last year, following an even more severe crackdown in the U.S. Le said that the Hungary facility is another major step toward the company's localization plans and that it will lead to lower labor costs and a geopolitically friendlier environment when compared to Germany. CATL is also involved in an integrated electric vehicle battery project in Indonesia. According to local media reports, government officials expect production to begin in March 2026, which could give CATL a presence in the growing EV market of Southeast Asia. CATL said in a recent interview with The Financial Times that it also plans to roll out its battery-swapping and recycling technology to Europe, in a move that could have significant ramifications for the regional market. CNBC has contacted CATL for further details. Modern battery-swapping technology, while popular in China, is yet to take off in Europe. Chinese EV maker and battery-swapping pioneer Nio is one exception. The company has introduced 60 battery swap stations across Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Jeep and Dodge maker Stellantis, meanwhile, recently partnered with U.S.-based Ample to integrate battery swapping technology to a fleet of 100 Fiat 500 EVs in Madrid, Spain. The experience of using a battery swap station is thought to be very similar to using an automated car wash. The EV driver parks the car on a platform with an integrated system, which removes the depleted battery from beneath the vehicle and replaces it with a fresh, fully charged one. The whole process takes about five minutes. Advocates of battery charging through a swapping station say the technology solves a number of issues, particularly relating to fast charging and long-term performance — two major sticking points for the widespread adoption of EVs. Analysts say another key benefit to swapping is that it allows car manufacturers to maintain ownership of the battery, which lowers the initial price of the vehicle and creates a regular revenue stream for the OEMs. Some drawbacks, however, include high initial infrastructure costs and a lack of standardization across car manufacturers. Connor Watts, battery raw materials analyst at consultancy Fastmarkets, said CATL, which has a number of partnerships with Chinese OEMs, is well positioned to implement the necessary level of product standardization across its customer base. "And particularly following its recent influx of cash from its Hong-Kong listing, it has the necessary capital to develop infrastructure within the European market," Watts told CNBC by email. "Of companies that could succeed in developing the European battery swapping industry, none are better placed than CATL considering its market position," he added. Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at the campaign group Transport & Environment, said major carmakers would have to agree to a standardized cell design for battery-swapping technology to work at scale in Europe. "Battery swapping is a good addition to the charging space, and in some parts of the market it makes sense … but it is not a silver bullet to solve our problems," Poliscanova told CNBC by phone. "We will still need batteries and we will still need materials for them, whether they are swapped or whether they are in the car permanently," she added.

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