The number of private jet flights across Europe from 2020 to 2022 caused the same amount of CO2 as the entire annual emissions of Leeds city, according to new research.
In those three years combined there were 1,041,640 flights causing 5,377,851 tonnes of CO2 - equal to the emissions of the UK city.
As with all international traffic, private flights dropped in 2020, but a year later, when travel restrictions were still in place for many commercial passengers, they shot back and exceeded 2019 levels, the analysis showed.
The research was conducted by Dutch environmental consultants CE Delft using data from aviation analytics company Cirium.
They analysed private jet traffic across Europe over three years, 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the associated CO2 emissions.
The number of flights increased still further in 2022 from 350,078 to 572,806, with the associated CO2 more than doubling to over 3.3 million tonnes, it found.
Greenpeace is calling for a ban on private jets, saying 39% of the 570,000 flights made across Europe last year were considered "very short haul", less than 500km, and therefore easily navigable by train.
The study showed that more private jets took off from the UK than any other country in Europe in 2022.
The UK can claim the most flights and the most emissions, as well as the busiest and most carbon-intensive routes, the analysts said.
On average, a private jet left the UK every six minutes in 2022, totalling 90,256 and causing half a million tonnes of CO2.
The route between London and Paris - where Eurostar runs trains between 10 and 15 times a day - was the most popular, with 3,357 flights.
The most carbon-intensive route was between Farnborough and Blackbushe airports in Hampshire - a distance of fewer than five miles, which Google Maps says can be walked in just over an hour-and-a-half.
There were 13 flights made on this route in 2022 which produced 23 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to driving around 50,000 miles, the research found.
Greenpeace analysts said these flights were likely to have been made for positioning - when a plane is moved to another airport to begin its primary flight.
There were also 1,343 flights between Farnborough and various London airports through 2022.
Farnborough describes itself as the largest and most pre-eminent business airport in the UK and the "business gateway to Europe and beyond".
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: "Private jets are staggeringly polluting and generally pointless.
"Many of these journeys can be covered almost as quickly by train, and some of them by bicycle.
"Millions of people around the world are facing climate chaos, losing livelihoods or worse, while a tiny minority are burning jet fuel like there's no tomorrow."
Max Thrower, of the Aviation Environment Federation, a group that campaigns on aviation's environmental impacts, said: "Flying by private jet is the most carbon-intensive way to travel and it's unacceptable that people continue to do it unnecessarily in the midst of a climate emergency.
"The fact it continues suggests that the super-rich are laughing in the faces of normal people, who are becoming increasingly concerned about their carbon footprint from flying."
There have been calls here for a ban on private jet use in Irish airspace, with People Before Profit saying it plans to introduce a bill after Easter to support the ban.
Oisín Coghan, Director of Friends of the Earth, has said the report shows that in the last year, private jet flights leaving Irish airports more than doubled.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, he said: "They went up to almost 7,000 flights in the year and each of those flights was ten tonnes of emissions, which may in itself not mean anything until you realise that's about what the average Irish person does in a year.
"So, this flight that might last an hour is the same as what the rest of us do in a year or the same as 40,000km driving your petrol car, so that's probably about what a car does in three years."
Mr Coghlan said it is not about the average family taking one foreign holiday a year, it is the frequent business class flyers and "this is even above that again and we need to tackle it".
