In a statement, the group, which brings together more than 20 Portuguese organisations that advocate for the decline of aviation and fair and ecological mobility, says that emissions from those jets “increased from 277,000 tons of CO2 in 2023 to 283,000 tons in 2024”, a figure that corresponds to “the annual emissions of 141,000 Portuguese people”.

Aterra says the figures presented are the result of updating private jet emissions data from the website privateaircrafts.eu, “operated by researcher Jorge Leitão”.

“While society as a whole is being asked to reduce polluting emissions, private jets and their contribution to climate change continue to break records,” he says, pointing out that “Portugal is one of the 10 countries in the world with the highest emissions from private jets.”

This position is due to the fact that the “European subsidiary of the largest private jet company in the world, NetJets Europe”, which “owns the majority of the Portuguese fleet”, is based in Portugal.

“In this scenario, Portugal remains among the 10 countries around the world with the highest absolute emissions from private jets, behind only the United States, Canada, Malta, Germany, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Brazil,” he explains.

For the movement, “private jets are the most scandalous example of a sector whose emissions continue to grow, and any credible climate commitment implies the end of airport infrastructure expansion projects and a drastic reduction in air traffic permitted in Portugal”.

The end of tax exemptions on airline tickets and fuel or the application of a tax on frequent flights are measures suggested by Aterra as a contribution to changing the situation.

According to a study published in November last year in the scientific journal Communications Earth & Environment, annual CO2 emissions from private aviation increased by 46% between 2019 and 2023.

Researchers also found that some individuals who regularly use private planes can generate nearly 500 times more carbon dioxide in a year than the average person.

CO2 is the main of the three greenhouse gases (GHG) that contribute most to global warming on the planet, alongside methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).