Kenya, France, Spain, and three other countries have agreed to tax premium flyers and private jet owners to generate funds for climate change issues and sustainable development.

This was announced on Monday, the opening day of the ongoing United Nations Fourth Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain.

The initiative, backed by Sierra Leone, Benin, Antigua and Barbuda, and Somalia, is the first to emerge from the “Sevilla Platform for Action,” which aims to deliver on the renewed global financing framework agreed upon ahead of the event.

The office of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a statement, “The aim is to help improve green taxation and foster international solidarity by promoting more progressive and harmonised tax systems.”

The European Commission pledged technical support for Rebecca Newsom, Global Political Lead of Greenpeace International’s “Stop Drilling Start Paying” campaign, lauding the initiative.

“Flying is the most elite and polluting form of travel, so this is an important step towards ensuring that the binge users of this undertaxed sector are made to pay their fair share.

“With the cost of climate impacts surging in countries least responsible for the crisis, bold, cooperative action that makes polluters pay is not just fair – it’s essential,” Ms Newsom said.

She added, “The obvious next step is to hold oil and gas corporations to account. As fossil fuel barons rake in obscene profits, and people are battered with increasingly violent floods, storms and wildfires, it’s no surprise that eight out of 10 people support making them pay.

“Members of the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force and rich countries around the world should act upon this enormous public mandate: commit to higher taxes on fossil fuel profits and extraction by COP30, while ensuring that those being hit hardest by the climate crisis around the world benefit most from the revenues.”