Dassault says its Falcon jets emit less carbon than streaming video

As French planemaker Dassault Aviation posted strong full-year results on Thursday morning, its chief executive, Eric Trappier, seized the opportunity to defend his business against an “attack on aviation” that is gaining momentum.

Falcon and carbon footprint

The Falcons are Dassault Aviation’s business jets currently in use in more than 100 countries around the world.

The 2,100 aircraft would release 1.6 million tons of CO2 a year, or 0.003% of total global emissions, Dassault Aviation told BFM Business. That’s 14 minutes of annual global CO2 emissions, the company continued.

So are business aviation, and private jets in general, the ideal culprits for a crime they didn’t commit?

Comparison with streaming, truck traffic and German thermal power plants puts into perspective the many accusations that jets are subjected to.

However, seen from another angle, the figures do not tell exactly the same story: if there are 2,100 Falcons in service in the world, there are more than 6 million trucks in Europe alone, and many more billion users of streaming video per year. . That is, if we reduce the carbon footprint of these activities per user, it goes against commercial aviation.

“Aviation Attack”

Private jets and aviation in general have been at the center of the debate on the climate crisis in France and around the world for several years.

Private jets because they are perceived as a luxury only within the reach of the privileged and aviation because it is a great consumer of fuel that emits more than 2% of global CO2 emissions in the world during a year.

Planes, including Dassault Aviation business jets, have started using fuel they call “biofuels” to join the decarbonization movement.

Agrofuel is a fuel made from products such as cooking oils or animal waste and today it can be mixed with conventional fuel up to 50% in aircraft engines. Little used at the moment, partly because of their high price, they are also the object of criticism from environmental defenders who accuse them, among other things, of promoting deforestation.