Eurostar action celebrates new rail line, but damns PM for Heathrow plans
Greenpeace climbers dodged police and security guards this morning before scaling the front of St Pancras station and dropping a massive banner emblazoned with the word 'YES!' in three metre high letters.
The high-altitude action is a rare instance of environmentalists launching a demonstration to celebrate progress in the fight against global warming. The climbers are blowing up huge green balloons and throwing biodegradable confetti into the air as the new high-speed rail link from St Pancras to Europe finally opens to the public, cutting journey times and challenging high-polluting airlines.
Research reveals that taking the train causes ten times less damage to the climate than flying (1). But as Gordon Brown seeks to gain political capital from today's opening, the Greenpeace campaigners are striking a note of caution. Despite the obvious environmental benefits of the train, the Prime Minister is pushing ahead with plans to expand UK airports to cater for journeys that could be made by rail. The most popular destination from Heathrow is Paris, with sixty flights back and forth every day.
Below the word YES on the huge sixteen metre by eight metre banner is the line: 'PS Gordon, no need for that 3rd runway'.
Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said: "At Greenpeace we're not known for scaling buildings to celebrate progress in the fight against climate change, but today's opening is worth shouting about. If Britain wants to slash its emissions then this is just the kind of low carbon solution we need to see more of."
He continued: "While Gordon Brown wants plaudits for the Eurostar line, he's planning a new, totally unnecessary runway at Heathrow that will dramatically increase greenhouse gas emissions. If the policies were put in place to support train travel and make airlines pay the true costs of their pollution then we could reduce flights from airports like Heathrow instead of building new runways."
Flights between Heathrow and locations easily accessible by train - such as Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds/Bradford and Durham - total over 100,000 flights a year. If passengers taking these unnecessary flights could be transferred to the train, there would be no need for Brown's 3rd runway (2).
Flying is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, doubling in the 1990s. According to the government, flights from and within the UK account for 13 per cent of the UK's climate impact because greenhouse gases create more global warming when emitted at altitude (3).
British flyers already create far more carbon emissions per head than those from any other country - nearly 40 per cent higher than the second placed country, Ireland, and more than twice as much as Americans. The Tyndall climate research centre calculates that if aviation expands as projected, Britain will have to totally decarbonise the rest of its economy by 2050 to effectively tackle climate change (4).
"We've got a binge-flying culture in Britain and part of the answer is high-speed rail links like the one opening today," John Sauven added.
ENDS
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Notes:
(1) Eurostar press release, 2 October 2006. Greenpeace's own calculation that flying is 'ten times more damaging to the climate than travelling by train' is based on government and IPCC figures and includes the extra damage that aircraft emissions do at altitude. DEFRA estimates that short haul air emits 0.15 kg/CO2 per passenger Km. (www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/envrp/... - pdf). This multiplied by 2.7 (the IPCC's reference case scenario for the impact of radiative forcing) equals 0.405. DEFRA estimates rail on average emits 0.04 kg/CO2 per passenger Km, approximately 10 per cent of 0.405.
(2) 13 per cent figure - from Answer to Commons Parliamentary Question 2 May 2007. This figure includes the greater damage done by aircraft emissions at high altitude (the radiative forcing effect), but excludes the damage caused by the formation of cirrus clouds.
(3) Research conducted by HACAN (Shot-Haul Flights: Clogging up Heathrow's Runways) shows that 100,000 flights a year from Heathrow (i.e. more than a fifth of the total) are to destinations served by good rail links and reachable by train within 6 hours. If these flights were cut, flight numbers at Heathrow would be at the level they were at in the mid-1990s removing the need for a third runway. Given that BA represents 40 per cent of Heathrow's business, if the airline took the lead in cutting these unnecessary flights, it would have significant impact and reduce the need for the third runway at LHR.
(4) The average carbon emission for each British flyer was 603kg (1329lb) a year, more than a third higher than Ireland in second place with 434kg and more than double that of the US at 275kg, in third place.
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/10/...
