When economist Paul Collier introduced the “Bottom Billion” theory, he described a vast population—mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa—trapped in systemic poverty, political instability, and chronic vulnerability. These communities have contributed almost nothing to the climate crisis, yet they are the most exposed to its consequences. Their carbon footprint remains negligible, often less than a fraction of a tonne per person each year, while the world’s wealthiest individuals emit in volumes that reshape global climate patterns. Climate inequality is not abstract; it is measurable, staggering, and deeply unjust.
Private Jet Emissions and the Scale of Carbon Inequality
Against this backdrop, Professor Stefan Gössling’s remark—reported by the BBC—that each frequent private jet user emits “more than a small city in Central Africa” becomes more than a provocative claim. It becomes a lens through which the asymmetry of global emissions comes into sharp focus. His statement points to a truth hidden in plain sight: the environmental impact of the ultra-rich directly collides with the lived realities of the world’s poorest.
Private jet users represent an extremely small slice of humanity. Estimates place them at around 256,000 individuals—roughly 0.003 percent of the global adult population. Other environmental analyses, including those from Yale Environment 360, show a similar scale: fewer than one in ten thousand people regularly fly on private jets. Even within this minuscule group, a smaller subset of “super flyers” uses private aviation at a frequency that dramatically elevates their personal carbon footprint each year. In a literal sense, they are a tiny fraction of humanity. Yet their emissions overshadow the climate impact of entire regions.
How Much Do Private Jet Users Actually Emit?
Recent research shows that a frequent private jet user emits around 2,400 tonnes of CO₂ annually, a figure reported by the Associated Press. To understand this number, consider that the global per-person average is about 4 to 5 tonnes. That makes a single super-emitter equivalent to roughly 500 ordinary individuals. One hour in a private jet can produce more carbon pollution than the average human emits in an entire year.
In 2023 alone, private jets released 15.6 million tonnes of CO₂, a staggering 46 percent increase from 2019—a trend documented in Phys.org. Meanwhile, research from the ICCT shows that a single private jet produces 810 tonnes of CO₂ annually, the equivalent of 177 passenger cars.
Comparing Emissions Using Country-Level Data
This is where Gössling’s comparison to a “small city in Central Africa” becomes illuminating. If we look at the Central African Republic—a country emblematic of the Bottom Billion—its total CO₂ emissions in 2023 were about 368,000 tonnes, according to CountryEconomy. With a population of roughly 5.15 million, that works out to about 0.07 tonnes per capita. This means that a group of 10,000 people in the region would produce around 500 tonnes of CO₂ in a year. Even expanding this hypothetical city to 20,000 residents would only bring the total to roughly 1,400 tonnes.
A single private jet frequent flyer emits far more.
How African Cities Compare
The logic can be extended for comparison beyond Central Africa. Although Nairobi is located in East Africa, its data illustrates broader regional contrasts. Nairobi emitted 6.33 million tonnes of CO₂e in 2023, with a per-person footprint of 1.27 tonnes, as shown in UCAP’s city fact sheet. Despite being far more industrialized than a Central African town, the disparity persists: one private jet super-emitter equals nearly 1,900 Nairobi residents.
This does not diminish Nairobi’s urban status but rather magnifies the extreme imbalance between elite emissions and everyday realities in African cities.
The Human Consequences for the Bottom Billion
What makes this comparison significant is not the rhetorical flourish of “a small city,” but the structural truth it reveals: those who contribute least to climate change face the harshest consequences, while the small group most responsible continues to enjoy the greatest privileges.
In the Central African Republic, droughts jeopardize crops, rainfall patterns become unpredictable, and extreme weather events escalate existing economic fragilities. People in these communities often live without steady electricity, reliable water, or stable infrastructure. Their minimal carbon footprint is not a lifestyle choice—it is a reflection of survival under conditions of extreme scarcity.
Meanwhile, private jets represent one of the most carbon-intensive forms of travel ever created. They serve a lifestyle of convenience, speed, and luxury, not necessity. Their emissions do not stay in the sky; they accumulate into the atmospheric changes that amplify heatwaves, disrupt monsoon cycles, and intensify storms across continents where millions struggle to adapt.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Ilincad Celmare, Mihai Bugă, Risheka Joshi, Stine Cordes
PHOTO © Ilincad Celmare
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