Fair taxes on private jets and superyachts could have raised up to £2 billion last year to help combat the climate crisis – Oxfam

Despite being the most polluting way to travel, private jet use in the UK is soaring with the second highest number of private jet flights in Europe last year – behind only France.

The UK is also home to a 450-strong fleet of fuel guzzling superyachts – vessels with immense carbon footprints. These are luxuries that only a tiny fraction of people can afford and allow the ultra-wealthy to pollute far beyond their fair share.

Oxfam is calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to increase taxes on climate-polluting extreme wealth – starting with private jets and superyachts. This could help ensure the much-needed finance to tackle the climate crisis is raised in a fair way that protects people on lower incomes and targets those most responsible and those who can most afford it.

Natalie Shortall, Oxfam GB Climate Justice Policy Adviser, said: “While the super-rich continue to pollute at excessive rates, it is people living in poverty – both in the UK and around the world – who have done the least to cause the climate crisis who are suffering the most from its devastating impacts.

“Further steps to better tax extreme wealth are needed to accelerate climate action and fight inequality – increasing taxes on highly polluting luxuries like private jets and superyachts is an obvious place for the Government to start.

“These are the kind of common-sense solutions that are urgently needed to quickly and fairly reduce emissions and raise crucial climate finance – by making the biggest and richest polluters pay.”

With the wealthiest 1 per cent contributing more emissions than two thirds of humanity, Oxfam warns that without fair action, this injustice will only deepen.

Oxfam figures show up to £830 million could have been raised last year by introducing a higher rate of Air Passenger Duty (APD) for private jets and introducing a superyacht ownership tax.

The research also highlights up to a further £1.2 billion of additional revenue could have been raised by taxing private jet fuel, charging Value Added Tax (VAT) on private aviation, as well as taxing private jet landing and departure slots.

Studies from organisations including Green Alliance and Campaign for Better Transport have shown that private jets are currently charged minimal tax compared to their outsized emissions.

Shortall added: “Amid escalating climate breakdown and inequality, it's morally incoherent that private jets pay no tax on fuel at all, while an ordinary person filling up their car does.”

The £2 billion that could be raised from taxing private jets and superyachts exceeds the total climate finance the UK Government provided in 2023 (£1.8bn). Implementing these new taxes could significantly boost the UK's support to those on the frontlines of the climate emergency, which is vitally needed, without impacting low-income communities in the UK.

Notes to editors:

Methodology available here

£1.2 billion figure is based on updated figures from Green Alliance’s brief: Taxing private jets: raising revenue from highly polluting, luxury private aviation

Oxfam’s report, Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99% published ahead of the UN Climate Summit, COP28 in November last year, highlighted that the richest 1 per cent of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 as the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity

Oxfam’s report Payment Overdue, Fair ways to make polluters across the UK pay for climate justice also showed that the UK Government could have raised up to £23 billion in 2022 if it had implemented a series of common-sense taxes on the UK’s biggest polluters – namely fossil fuel companies and the extremely rich.

UK government’s spending on climate aid totalled more than £1.8bn in 2023

Links to further studies: Green Alliance and Campaign for Better Transport as well as Transport & Environment’s study on untaxed aviation emissions