BORIS JOHNSON’s unnecessary use of a private jet on the Conservative campaign trail shows he “couldn’t care less about the climate emergency,” Labour charged today.

The PM was caught out earlier this week taking a 25-minute private flight from Doncaster to Darlington — a journey that takes less than an hour by train.

Labour’s shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said that the scandal “tells you everything you need to know about Boris Johnson” — who refused to show up to a TV climate debate while “flying around the country billionaire-class.”

He said: “People like Johnson, who thinks he is born to rule, are happy to fly to work in a private jet because they couldn’t care less about the climate emergency.

“It’s time to vote for a government that will protect the planet and put money in your pocket by bringing down fares and bringing the railways into public ownership.”

Short-haul flights carry large carbon footprints, with one return flight from London to Edinburgh contributing more CO₂ than the mean annual emissions of a person living in Uganda or Somalia.

Mr Johnson’s failure to step up and take action on the climate emergency has attracted criticism throughout this election campaign.

“Boris Johnson’s manifesto came second-bottom [to the Brexit Party] in our climate and nature ranking and now he’s turbocharging his carbon footprint during an election campaign where the climate emergency is one of the top concerns for voters,”  Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr said.

Extinction Rebellion activists also revealed today that 72 Tory candidates have refused to show up to climate hustings across the country.