Reacting to news that an announcement on Heathrow expansion has been postponed until next month, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:
"The pro-runway faction in government is on the run. There's been whispered talk of a cabinet split for weeks, but now it's bursting into the open as more ministers realise that the business case for expansion is deeply flawed while the environmental case for blocking a new runway is overwhelming."
He continued: "As the recession bites and airlines go bust or cancel routes, the last thing Britain needs is extra runway capacity. Instead we need investment in the railways to replace short-haul flights and cut pollution."
The announcement has already been postponed several times as ministers attempted to insulate Heathrow expansion from legal action by local residents. In March the government said it would announce its decision in the summer of 2008. See this page.
Then it was autumn, then definitely December.
Media reports suggest Heathrow expansion is opposed by several cabinet members, including Hilary Benn, Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman.
If the expansion demanded by BAA is allowed, Heathrow will become the single biggest source of CO2 in Britain. Heathrow expansion is opposed by a huge coalition of scientists, environmentalists, local residents and people across the world concerned about climate change.
- Unrestrained airport expansion will make it impossible for the UK to play its part in tackling climate change. The government has committed the UK to an 80 per cent cut in Co2 emissions by 2050 and emissions from aviation will be counted(1). Research from the respected Tyndall Centre shows that if the industry is allowed to expand as predicted, aviation alone would destroy any hope of hitting this target (2).
- Aviation currently receives £9bn per year in tax subsidies (3). This money could be spent on the rail network to help deliver a cheap, reliable, and environmentally sound transport solution.
- A recent report jointly written by the government's environment watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, and the influential left wing think tank, IPPR, called on the government to completely rethink its aviation policy because of doubts over the environmental and economic data underpinning the government's pro-expansion policy. It recommends that the government launches a full, independent review of its 2003 aviation white paper.
- The economic benefits of aviation expansion have been overstated. There is growing uncertainty over the industry's projections of future demand given oil price instability (4).
- Meanwhile the costs of climate change are growing all the time - the floods in summer 2007 were estimated to have cost £3 billion. The Stern report on the economics of climate change estimates that business as usual climate change will cost between 5 and 20 per cent of global GDP (5).
- Small increases in the efficiency of planes will be overwhelmed by an unrestrained growth in flights. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution found that the industry's targets are ‘clearly aspirations rather than projections' (6). There are some basic technological restraints that make major improvements impossible to imagine. However, if the Government caps the total number of flights at current levels, these efficiency gains could have a positive impact.
- Aviation emissions do more damage to the climate because they are released at altitude. Scientists multiply aviation emissions (which include other harmful gases not just C02) by between 2 and 3 to calculate their increased climate impact - a phenomenon known as ‘radiative forcing'.
- Including aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme will not solve the problem. According to a report from Ernst and Young, even in the toughest ETS scenario emissions from the aviation sector would grow by 83 per cent by 2020 (7).
- Per person, Britons emit more from flying than any other people else on the planet (603kg per person per year, compared to 434kg for Irish and 275 kg for Americans) while in the UK aviation accounts for 13 per cent of the country's entire climate impact (8) - a figure that is growing fast.
ENDS
Greenpeace 0207 865 8255
1. Department of Climate and Energy - 16 October 2008
2. K Anderson, A Bows, P Upham (2006) Growth scenarios for EU & UK aviation: contradiction with climate policy, Page 42.
3. Sewill. (2003) The hidden cost of flying. AEF. The figure of £9 billion was confirmed by BAA consultants Volterrra, in November 2003. Since then, inflation and the increased number of passengers raised the figure to £10 billion but it was brought back to £9 billion by the rise in air passenger duty on the 1 February 2007.
4. Generated User Benefits and the Heathrow Expansion: Understanding Consumer Surplus (July 2008)
6. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 29th November 2002. The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight. Special Report
7. T&E background briefing (2007) Including Aviation in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) page 2.
8. Green values: consumers and branding - TGI consultants; 13 per cent figure from Gillian Merron in answer to parliamentary question 26 April 2007.
