PETALING JAYA, Aug 1 — Taylor Swift has responded to criticism over her carbon footprint by saying that she’s not responsible for most of the flights made by her private jet.

Swift recently received backlash on social media following a study alleging that flights by her private jet have emitted 8,293.5 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide in the past seven months.

The study, carried out by digital marketing firm Yard, added that Swift’s flight emissions alone were 1,184.8 times more than the average person’s total annual emissions.

A spokesperson for the 32-year-old singer told E! News yesterday that the star’s jet is “loaned out regularly to other individuals”.

“To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect,” the spokesperson added in a statement.

According to Yard, Swift’s jet made 170 flights in the first 200 days of 2022, amounting to almost 16 days of flight time.

Swift topped the list of celebrities named for causing the most carbon emissions with their private jets, followed by boxer Floyd Mayweather and rapper Jay-Z.

The list’s top 10 also included country singer Blake Shelton, director Steven Spielberg, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

Data from the study was pulled from flight-tracking Twitter account Celebrity Jets, which in turn gets its data from ADS-B Exchange.

On its website, ADS-B Exchange dubs itself as the “world’s largest source of unfiltered flight data”.

News of the study sparked plenty of memes over the weekend, most featuring tongue-in-cheek captions implying that Swift would take a flight to carry out mundane tasks.



Fellow celebrities were also not spared.

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Yard’s study was published amidst a larger online discussion over the environmental damage caused by wealthy individuals’ private jet usage.

Earlier last month, socialite Kylie Jenner received criticism for a tone-deaf Instagram post asking fans which private jet she should use for a 17-minute flight — the same post which inspired Yard’s study.

Meanwhile, musician Drake last week attempted to justify using his personal Boeing 767 for a series of flights lasting under 20 minutes each — by saying that the flights were empty.

On Friday (July 29), The Guardian reported that Drake took multiple short flights between Toronto and Hamilton in Canada.

According to Google Maps, the cities are within a 47-minute driving distance from each other.

Responding to critics on Instagram, Drake said: “This is just them moving planes to whatever airport they are being stored at for anyone who was (sic) interested in the logistics...nobody takes that flight.”