“It is time to act against the aberration of super-yachts which only benefit the ultra-rich”

Sdo you know that, overall, yachts account for the bulk of billionaires’ CO₂ emissions? Do you know that the fleet of the three hundred largest super-yachts in operation emits nearly 85,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, more than some countries? Did you know that according to a study ofAtmosud carried out in 2019 in the port of Nice, a yacht not connected to the quay would generate as much nitrogen dioxide as two hundred and fifty cars, and as many fine particles as a thousand cars when it uses its generators to produce electricity on board?

However, superyachts have never been so popular. While the Monaco Yacht Show has just quietly ended [le 1^er octobre], the Yacht Club de Monaco brings together under its flag more than eight hundred owners of super-yachts, including thirty-seven of the hundred largest yachts in the world. And since the 1980s, the number of superyachts has been steadily increasing: the number of these giant luxury boats has increased sixfold worldwide. The phenomenon is growing.

It is growing and it is far from being anecdotal: maintenance costs are such that, according to sociologist Grégory Salle (Superyachts. Luxury, calm and ecocide, Ed. Amsterdam, 2021), the annual expenditure on the five thousand to six thousand yachts listed in the world in 2020 could wipe out the total amount of debt of so-called developing countries!

Yachts are not only CO emitters₂. First, their maintenance costs are pharaonic, as we have seen with the seizure of Russian oligarchs’ yachts since the start of the war in Ukraine. Often belonging to oil and gas tycoons allied with Vladimir Putin, and whose economic activities are climaticidal and little concerned with human rights, dozens of yachts, measuring between forty-eight and one hundred and fifty-six meters whose value can exceed the 600 million dollars (about 604.5 million euros) were seized.

The impact of the anchor

These seizures have rightly revealed the extent of indecency, generated strong reactions to the excessiveness of these luxury products and highlighted the immense costs of maintaining them.

Because if we analyze the life cycle of these megaboats, from their construction to their destruction, including the infrastructure to accommodate them, the impact at anchor and the hotel costs, the results are terrible.

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