Civil servants flew 80,000 times during the Cabinet's term of office

The outgoing Cabinet, which aimed to limit emissions during its term of office, must realize that it has not achieved its goals. Unlike other cabinets, the so-called Climate Cabinet has caused even more emissions from increasing air travel than the cabinets before them, the Telegraaf reported.

The green line that the environmentally conscious Cabinet wanted to draw is thus crumbling. According to an overview by the Ministry of the Interior, made available to the newspaper, civil servants in the outgoing cabinet have flown almost 80,000 times. More than 11,000 of the flights were in business class, quadrupling the CO2 footprint. Travelers in business class take up more space and, therefore, produce almost three to four times more CO2 emissions. In the first half of this year alone, officials flew around 15,000 times, 2,300 of which were in business class.

The Ministry of the Interior explained to the newspaper that civil servants do not tend to fly business class but that the duration of the journey is the decisive factor. "For a flight of less than six hours, the journey is made in economy class. Traveling in business class is permitted if the flight is six hours or more, but this is not mandatory."

Overall, the steady increase in flights is not in line with the emission-reducing measures envisaged by the government in its sustainability program, as the Cabinet's goal was to halve CO2 emissions from business travel by 2030, the Telegraaf reported.

Even if this target could not be achieved due to increased air travel by civil servants, the use of company cars and the resulting emissions have been reduced, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.