How Taylor Swift became the subject of a carbon footprint debate, and how her private jet is contributing to global warming.
The Eraser Tour superstar is known for revitalizing the economy, teaching at universities like Harvard, re-recording her own music, and breaking records with new album releases like “The Tortured Poets Department.” She's also been noted for flying around the world in her private jet (she sold her second one) to concert venues, meet with business and friends in New York, rehearse in Los Angeles, see family in Nashville, and visit boyfriend Travis Kelce in Kansas City, Missouri.
The conversation began in 2022
In the summer of 2022, Kylie Jenner posted a (now deleted) photo of her and Travis Scott's private jet with the caption, “Who do you want to ride in, mine or yours?” Following backlash, content and PR company The Yard released a study on celebrities who generated the most emissions from private jets that year. The magazine put Miss Americana at the top.
The Yard added a disclaimer to the beginning of its study, which read in part: “Rolling Stone reached out to representatives for each celebrity for comment after the data was published. A representative for Taylor Swift said: 'Taylor's jet is regularly rented out to other individuals. It is patently incorrect to attribute most or all of these trips to her.'”
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Jet Chase Students
Amid the excitement of 2022, a University of Central Florida (UCF) information technology student began tracking Swift's two jets. Jack Sweeney set up an automated system to post updates when the billionaire's private jet took off or landed. His account skyrocketed in popularity as fans checked to see if Swift was at NFL games to cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs.
The increased attention has infuriated Swifties, who claim that Sweeney is invading the tortured poet's privacy and posing a security threat.
“This is all public record and this information is always available,” he said over Zoom. “Fans are interested, other fans are angry. They think I'm stalking[Swift]when I'm just sharing public information.”
Sweeney's fascination with plane tracking began during the 2021 coronavirus pandemic. He tracked down Elon Musk's planes and posted information about the jets. At one point, Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 in exchange for shutting down his X/Twitter account. The UCF student spoke to a journalist instead, and the deal fell through.
Musk, who owns X/Twitter, banned Sweeney's account, and Meta also suspended his Instagram account, which had attracted nearly 100,000 followers last winter.
Swift's team sent Sweeney two cease and desist letters, claiming the pursuit put Swift in danger and was a “matter of life and death.” After Sweeney hired a lawyer, published an open letter, and gave several interviews, relations became frosty.
When asked about security, Sweeney replied, “Other people are doing the same thing, posting about her flights. When she flew to Brazil, the news was livestreamed from the airport. Even if I'm no longer tracked, that will still happen and she travels with a security team. Airports are some of the safest places.”
Swift sold one of her two private jets earlier this year. The animation shows Swift's two jets flying a combined 178,000 miles and generating 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2023. Most of the flights will be to Los Angeles, New York, Nashville and concert venues on her 2023 Hellas Tour.
Searching for lists of celebrities with the highest carbon footprints turns up conflicting reports: MyClimate ranked celebrities' carbon footprints for 2023, but the Eraser Tour singer didn't make the top 20, giving the highest ratings to Travis Scott, Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk.
Swift's Environmental Impact
Payless Power made conservative projections for Swift's jet-setting travel in 2024, which includes 86 shows in 27 cities across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.
“The purpose of this study was to explore renewable energy,” said Adi Sachdeva, project manager for Payless Power. “Her tour is one of the most extensive we've ever done.”
The Texas-based company used data from its MyClimate Carbon Tracker to create a report projecting the jet's carbon footprint, excluding any potential diversions the singer might take during en route stops.
They noted that Swift will fly an estimated 43,688 km on the Erastour, emitting 511,154 kg of CO2, which is equivalent to driving 1,307,311 miles in a gasoline-powered car, or the equivalent of the emissions produced by 67 homes in a year.
While this may seem like a lot for the singer who has been on record-breaking tours around the world, the report says her 2024 travels will still fall short of the top celebrities in 2023, including Travis Scott (6.06 million kilograms of CO2), Kim Kardashian (5.86 million kilograms) and Elon Musk (4.56 million kilograms).
“We wanted to compare it to the average individual,” Sachdeva says. “You often see big numbers online for private jets, but you don't know what they mean, and people don't know their own emissions so they believe numbers that seem really big.”
Environmentalists speak out
Nick Loris, vice president of public policy at C3 Solutions, a conservative climate coalition that seeks to improve energy abundance and energy prices, helps put the impacts of Swift's jet into perspective.
“Aviation is important, and commercial aviation is a fairly large industry contributor, but it still represents a relatively small share of overall global greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “Some of the top emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transport – coal, oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas. Buildings use a lot of energy, and we mainly use gasoline and diesel for travel. Industry and agriculture also make sizeable contributions.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, aviation accounts for 9% of carbon-related emissions in the U.S. Private jets produce at least 10 times the emissions per passenger as commercial flights.
Loris points out that in reality, Swift can't fly commercially, which would create a whole host of logistical and security issues — think of the ring of security guards surrounding her on the red carpet.
So what's the solution?
Loris said that if Swift's 2022 emissions of 8,300 tonnes are divided by global greenhouse gas emissions of 36.8 gigatons, her overall emissions impact comes to about 0.000000225%, though the percentage could be slightly higher in 2023 and 2024 due to touring.
Swift's spokeswoman, Tree Payne, told Bloomberg News in 2023 that the singer-songwriter purchased more than double the credits needed to offset the full cost of her trip.
“Carbon credits present some challenges,” says Loris. “A lot of good work has come out of carbon offset projects, such as reforestation projects, different types of direct air capture technologies, and investments in renewable electricity. The challenge is that there is also a lot of junk carbon offsets where no additional emissions reductions were made because the projects were already built. It is also important that carbon offset projects are measurable and permanent. For example, let's say you buy carbon offsets for a reforestation project in California, and then it all burns down in a forest fire. That releases pollutants and CO2 into the atmosphere, voiding your carbon offset.”
Loris says the increased attention could enable the singer to become a more vocal advocate for jet-setting solutions around the world and an investor in new innovative technologies such as sustainable aviation fuels and direct air capture – essentially a vacuum that sucks up carbon.
Swift is on the European leg of her Erasus tour, which will see her play 15 more cities on the continent before heading to North America in the fall.
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Taylor Swift reporter Brian West on Instagram, TikTok, X as @BryanWestTV
