Can you fly in your private jet and be green? The aviation industry and its lobbyists hope to make it seem that way.

As celebrities and billionaires rack up bad press for the carbon footprints of their private jets, the industry’s lobby is hyping so-called “sustainable aviation fuels,” or SAFs, as their answer to their oversized role in the climate crisis. And they want taxpayers to chip in.

Thanks to the aviation and ethanol lobby, some money is already flowing. Congress recently passed an FAA Reauthorization bill that includes a growing investment in alternative jet fuels. The Treasury Department recently issued guidelines for a Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credit, a provision included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

Before taxpayers shell out any more, we should act like smart grocery shoppers who come across “all-natural” labels on food products: We need to look closely at the ingredients.

In a new report we co-authored, “Greenwashing the Skies,” we conclude there is no realistic or scalable alternative to kerosene-based fuels to meet aviation demands, let alone future growth projections.

Of course, the decarbonization of aviation is technologically possible. For example, we know that electrification of small short-range aircraft is a real option that can be scaled up in the coming decades. Potential synthetic and hydrogen-based alternative fuels also exist.

But how much potential is there really? And what are the tradeoffs?

To expand SAFs, producers must use biogenic feedstocks like wheat straw and corn-based ethanol. However, shifting agricultural land to fuel production could threaten our global food supply and destroy forests and wetlands, which absorb carbon.

According to the World Resources Institute, producing 35 billion gallons of SAFs, the administration’s goal, would require 114 million acres of corn — 20% more than the total land area of corn crops today.

Burning SAFs emits carbon dioxide — sometimes more than kerosene-based jet fuel.

The industry’s response to its failure is predictable: “We need to invest more money in new SAF infrastructure and production.” But when they say “we,” they’re talking about your money.

Don’t underestimate the power and clout of the aviation industry to win subsidies, especially the private jet lobby that represents the interests of the wealthiest people on the planet. They’re eager to extract billions from taxpayers around the world.

There are finite resources for the transition to a post-fossil fuel economy. Allocating resources for private jets — many of which are used for recreational purposes — is the least defensible use of societal resources on a warming planet. Government subsidies should flow toward electrifying our bus fleet and building green transit and high-speed rail to move millions of people, not private jets, for a select group of billionaires and multi-millionaires.

Chuck Collins directs the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies. Omar Ocampo is an IPS inequality researcher. Both co-authored the IPS report Greenwashing the Skies./InsideSources