Tickets can cost up to £18,000 and create nearly two tons of carbon dioxide

High-flying hypocrite: Dame Thompson is spotted on a British Airways flight from Heathrow to JFK on Friday morning, despite earlier demanding: ‘We should all fly less’

Left-wing actress Dame Emma Thompson was branded a ‘first-class hypocrite’ last night after jetting to New York just days after backing climate protests that brought chaos to London.

The Jeremy Corbyn supporter took her personal booth in the luxury cabin of a British Airways flight from Heathrow to JFK on Friday morning after earlier demanding: ‘We should all fly less.’

First-class BA flights to New York cost up to £18,000 and generate nearly two tons of carbon dioxide – the main driver of climate change – for each passenger in the elite cabin.

Onlookers claim the multi-millionaire activist also drank Laurent-Perrier champagne and dined on beef carpaccio – even though cattle farming is also a major contributor to greenhouse gasses.

Dame Emma has also previously called on people to eat less meat in the name of ‘preserving the planet’.

Cows produce methane – which is 23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – while clearing forests for pasture and to grow feed for livestock also drives global warming.

Just two weeks before her 3,400-mile flight, lifelong Labour supporter Dame Emma, 60, joined the Extinction Rebellion protests that shut down swathes of Central London, climbing aboard a pink boat the activists had used to blockade Oxford Circus.

The group wants to curb air travel and even made an abortive attempt to close Heathrow Airport, from where she departed at 11.20am on Friday for the eight-hour journey. Her share of the carbon dioxide generated by the flight was the same as that emitted by heating an average house for nine months.

The 60-year-old jetted 5,400 miles from Los Angeles to join Extinction Rebellion protestors who had taken over swathes of London's streets, closing off Waterloo Bridge for days and bringing Oxford Circus to a standstill

Airbus A380-800 Super Jumbo airliner with it's four engines creates a vapour trail (pictured above)

Dame Emma was spotted in 2F – one of the most exclusive seats on board the Boeing 777-200, which accommodates just 14 wealthy passengers in the first-class cabin.

An onlooker said Dame Emma – who has previously championed the Meat Free Monday movement which aims to raise awareness of the environmental damage caused by eating meat – was ‘tucking into those bovines who produce all that methane’.

Extinction Rebellion believes that there is now a ‘climate crisis’ and has suggested that flights be used only in an emergency.

Dame Emma was previously criticised after flying 5,400 miles from her 60th birthday party in Los Angeles to join their protests over the Easter weekend. On Good Friday, the Hollywood star, who lives in Hampstead, North London, but regularly flies to and from the US, addressed protesters at their makeshift camp off Oxford Street.

The Hollywood star, who lives in Hampstead, North London, but regularly flies to and from the US, addressed protesters at their makeshift camp off Oxford Street on Good Friday

‘I am so proud and thrilled to be part of Extinction Rebellion. We have to be here, we have to do this. It’s inconvenient for people sometimes but it’s much more inconvenient to leave a planet that’s so completely destroyed,’ she told the protestors in an address from a large pink boat

Addressing the charge of hypocrisy, Dame Emma added: ‘It’s very difficult to do my job without occasionally flying, although I do fly a lot less than I did.

She told them: ‘I am so proud and thrilled to be part of Extinction Rebellion.

‘We have to be here, we have to do this. It’s inconvenient for people sometimes but it’s much more inconvenient to leave a planet that’s so completely destroyed.’

At the time, the group defended its celebrity backer. It insisted that the tons of carbon her flight produced for her to be at their protest was an ‘unfortunate cost in our bigger battle to save the planet’.

And addressing the charge of hypocrisy, Dame Emma added: ‘It’s very difficult to do my job without occasionally flying, although I do fly a lot less than I did.

‘Yes, it’s unhappy and an inconvenience and we’re often involved in situations where we will be hypocritical, but if we don’t address this we are failing our children and our grandchildren.’

The plane pictured above is the same model which Emma Thompson has been pictured on

Dame Emma’s agent declined to comment last night. It is not known whether her flight was a free upgrade

Wearing gold sandals and dungarees, Dam Thompson struggles for a few seconds to disembark the large pink ship in the centre of Oxford Circus

Dame Emma says she plants trees to make amends for her globe-trotting, claiming: ‘I’m in the very fortunate position of being able to offset my carbon footprint, but most people can’t.’

But she insisted: ‘We should all fly less, the future of this planet is at stake and that’s perhaps more important than our own reputations.’

Dame Emma says she plants trees to make amends for her globe-trotting, claiming: ‘I’m in the very fortunate position of being able to offset my carbon footprint, but most people can’t.’

An Extinction Rebellion spokesman said: ‘If Emma Thompson wants to come and help out, that’s great – she’s using her platform which is incredibly valuable to anyone. If she has to fly around the world like a climate lawyer might have to fly around the world, it seems counter-productive in the short term but we are looking at the bigger picture.’

But last night critics branded the excuses nonsense.

Tory MP David Morris said: ‘This is typical Left-wing “Do as I say, not as I do”. Dame Emma Thompson is clearly a first-class hypocrite and a champagne socialist.’

Dame Emma’s agent declined to comment last night.

It is not known whether her flight was a free upgrade.