Mark Ruskell: There is no place for private jets in a greener future

There are few things as wasteful, needless and destructive as private jets. They are used as a decadent and extravagant sign of wealth and status, transporting some of the wealthiest people in the world from one city to the next.

They have no place in any kind of green vision for the future, yet there are 13,000 of them landing in Scotland every year.

The levels of pollution that they pump into our atmosphere as they go are staggering, with five to 15 times as much CO2 per passenger as a commercial flight and 50 times as much as rail.

It was 2019 when the Scottish Government declared a climate emergency, and since then, according to research in a new report by Oxfam Scotland, there have been 55,000 private flights recorded across our country.

READ MORE: We'll be at Labour conference – don't miss out, subscribe for £10

It seems absurd to me that we are allowing multi-millionaires to pollute the world around us at such an obscene rate.

Of course, the problem is bigger than private jets, but they are at the extreme end of a growing global problem where the richest are consuming resources at a rate that is wrecking the planet, while the poorest can’t meet their most basic needs.

The truth is that we cannot even begin to tackle the climate crisis without drastically reducing the number of flights that are taking off and landing every day, both here in Scotland and around the world.

Switching to biofuels to power aircraft would force the land needed for food production to be turned over to growing aviation fuel. There are no techno-fix solutions that allow aviation to keep growing.

I understand why so many people choose to fly, even internally within the UK. Analysis from Greenpeace shows that getting the train between Edinburgh and London is, on average, 60% more expensive than flying.

Despite that, more passengers have been switching from air to rail between Scotland and London. Rail can be competitive and more convenient than flights but it needs investment in better trains, faster track and fair fares.

For a lot of workers and students commuting daily, our trains are just about to become far more expensive, with the SNP Government deciding to bring back peak rail fares from next week. It will undo a lot of progress and will almost double the cost of commuting for a lot of rail users.

The removal of peak fares is something that the Scottish Greens were proud to work with campaigners and trade unions to achieve during our time in government.

(Image: Colin Mearns)

It took a lot of work, but it is a move that supported thousands of travellers during a cost of living crisis and encouraged cleaner, greener travel.

Peak fares are nothing more than an unfair tax on people who often have no say in when they need to travel for work or study.

How can we encourage more people to leave the car at home and switch to rail while we are hiking up prices and making it even less affordable?

From the end of next week, someone travelling from my nearest city, Stirling, to Edinburgh will see their daily fare going up from £12 to £20. If they are travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh, the cost of their fare will be hiked from £16 to £31.

Those are big jumps and will make people reconsider how they travel. That’s why the trade union movement has been so loud and clear in its opposition to the price rises, with RMT general secretary Mick Lynch denouncing it as a short-sighted backward step.

As Oxfam’s research has shown, we could help pay for incentives like scrapping peak rail fares by applying a tax on the private jet users who are doing so much damage.

Using Oxfam’s model, Scotland could raise more than £21 million a year by using air passenger duty powers, which could be invested in greener travel.

It’s a change that would be far easier with the support of the UK Government, but with Labour looking unlikely to budge, it’s important that we all work to overcome the constitutional hurdles which have seen these taxes held back for so long.

The return of off-peak fares all day is vital, but it is only one of the steps we need to take if we are to truly boost rail and transform the way we travel.

On a UK level, we also need to ensure we have faster links from Scotland’s cities to other parts of the UK and end the tax reliefs the aviation industry receives to ensure that it is taxed in a way that reflects the enormous impact it has on our climate. Those funds can be reinvested in lowering the cost of our railways.

The transport system we need is one where rail is always an affordable, accessible and reliable option, not one where private jets are flying overhead as the super-rich disregard our climate and pollute our planet.