There are so many examples of political leaders - elites, if you will – who enact rules for the common people, but then decide not to follow those very same rules. Therefore, we decided to create a Hypocrite’s Hall of Shame for those type of leaders. But who or what is worthy enough to become the first inductee? We welcome nominations from our readers, but we think the clear winner of that honor has to be the European Commission.
(Will put link to Oils well ends well) In July 2021, the European Commission proposed exempting private jets and cargo flights from planned EU jet fuel tax. However, a draft proposal indicated that the tax would be phased-in for commercial passenger transportation. One reason for the higher tax is that it would raise the cost of travel, thereby discouraging it, and that, in turn, would tend to produce a reduction in CO2 emissions. That’s not surprising. The European Commission has aggressively pushed Europe toward a green energy policy, and as we have written before (put link here), those environmental policies have resulted in sharply higher energy prices for the general population.
It's really very strange. If you seriously desire to promote policies that will reduce climate change, why in the world would you exempt private planes from a higher tax? Surely environmentalists know that private jets generally produce significantly more emissions per passenger than commercial flights. In fact, the impact of private jets in terms of CO2 emissions is ten times bigger than the one caused by commercial aviation and 50 times more severe than trains. According to T&E Aviation Director Andrew Murphy, ““Flying on a private jet is probably the worst thing you can do for the environment, and yet, super-rich super polluters are flying around like there’s no climate crisis.”
The rank hypocrisy of the European Conference showed itself during the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which was held in Glasgow, Scotland from October 31 to November 13, 2021. FlightRadar24, which tracks flights, looked at the number of non-commercial flights into Glasgow, Prestwick and Edinburgh airports since 27 October, excluding cargo, regular or local journeys, and found there were 182 of them. You can double that number when they left the conference!
Ask yourself, if there is really only 12 years to save the planet from climate change, why did not these world leaders show their commitment to their sacred cause by taking commercial airplanes which produce significantly less pollution? Better yet, maybe they could have used Zoom.
We suspect that the answer is, they don’t care enough to inconvenience themselves. After all, the rules are for the little people.
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