Campaigners say the influx of private jets into COP31 underlines the case for the Scottish Government to set Scotland’s new private jet tax to be set unapologetically high, sending a clear message to the rest of the world that climate leadership means making the biggest polluters pay.
Oxfam's analysis of data from Polluterjet reveals that 87 private jets have landed at Antalya Airport since 7 November, emitting an estimated 777 tons of CO₂, and equivalent to flying around the world more than three times.
Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote’s private jet flew approximately 4,370 kilometers from Lagos to Antalya, emitting an estimated 30 tons of CO₂, roughly as much as the average person emits in six years. During COP30 last year, 66 private jet journeys were recorded.
The findings come as the Scottish Government prepares to set the rate of Scotland’s private jet tax at the upcoming Scottish Budget, creating an important opportunity for Ministers to tackle one of the most polluting and unequal forms of transport.
The wider Oxfam analysis highlights the stark inequality at the heart of the climate crisis. Flood deaths have reached their highest level since 2013, with at least 8,000 people killed this year, while 106 countries have broken monthly temperature records during 2026.
Research cited by Oxfam also shows the carbon pollution of someone in the richest one percent has contributed 100 times more to today's extreme heatwaves than that of someone in the poorest half of humanity.
Katherine May, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said: "The spectacle of fleets of super-polluting private jets flying to a climate summit perfectly captures the grotesque gap between rhetoric and reality.
"Scottish Ministers have rightly spent COP championing support for communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, where people are already losing lives, homes and livelihoods to worsening floods, extreme heat and water and food insecurity. But after watching other delegates' private jets stream in, they should return home determined to make a stand against this extraordinary excess.
"By setting Scotland's private jet tax unapologetically high in the Scottish Budget, Ministers can send a clear message that they will make polluters pay and that climate leadership does not stop at speeches and summits.”
Private jets are among the most carbon-intensive ways to travel, and their use and ownership has grown alongside the extreme concentration of wealth. About 250,000 people use private jets, equivalent to 0.003 percent of the world’s population.
The Global Solidarity Levies Task Force estimates that taxing private jets could raise approximately $45 billion per year, nearly 12 times the amount rich countries gave to UN climate funds in 2025.
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For more information and interviews, please contact: Rebecca Lozza, Media and Communications Adviser, Oxfam Scotland: rlozza1@oxfam.org.uk / 07917738450
Notes to editors:
- Temperature data are monthly average surface temperatures from 1940 to September 2026 from the Copernicus Climate Change Service and sourced via Our World in Data. For each country, the maximum temperature value for each month from 1940 to 2025 was compared to the monthly temperatures in 2026. 106 countries (out of 194 where data was available) had at least one monthly temperature that broke the previous record.
- Flood data are from EM-DAT, a global mass disaster database. According to EM-DAT, between January and September 2026 (the most recent data available) floods caused 8,123 deaths. This is the highest toll for the same period since 2013 and the second highest since 2000, when reliable records began. According to EM-DAT, the August floods in Nepal killed 6,250 people.
- Download Oxfam’s report “Disaster Divide.”
- Oxfam's analysis of private jet data is sourced from Polluterjet, a live tracker monitoring private jets arriving in Antalya during COP31. Not all passengers on these flights will necessarily be attending the summit.
- Oxfam's analysis of data sourced from the Private Jet Accountability Project finds that 66 private jets landed in Belem, Brazil (114 tons of CO₂) during COP30.
- Rich countries gave $3.8 billion to UN climate funds in 2025.
