Commenting on reports that the Government will tomorrow announce consent for a third runway at Heathrow, Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said:
"This new runway cannot and will not be built. If it's a green light it will shred the last vestiges of Brown's environmental credibility. An expanded Heathrow would become the single biggest emitter of CO2 in Britain. Labour MPs will lose seats over this as the anti-runway movement grows and grows. We'll fight it every step of the way because the lives of millions of people depend on us all slashing carbon emissions."
Greenpeace has already bought the land earmarked by the Government for the runway and will defend it in the courts, and will never allow BAA bulldozers onto the site. More than 10,000 people from across the world have already signed up to be beneficial owners of the plot.
At full capacity, an expanded Heathrow would become the biggest single source of C02 emissions in the country. It would emit nearly 27 million tones of CO2 every year - equivalent to the emissions of 57 of the least polluting countries in the world combined (1).
A full Greenpeace briefing on Heathrow expansion can be found here:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/reports/the-case-against-heathrow-expansion-a-briefing
ENDS
Greenpeace press office 0207 865 8255 / 07801 212967
- 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% cut in Co2 emissions by 2050. 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.
- Aviation currently receives £9bn per year in tax subsidies. This money could be spent to help deliver cheap, reliable, and environmentally sound transport solutions.
- 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.
- 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% of global GDP.
- 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' here 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% by 2020. More recent research shows that in order for the ETS to have any chance of working from 2012 onwards, the Government must halt expansion now.
- 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% of the country's entire climate impact - a figure that is growing fast.
(1) Department for Transport's ‘UK Air Passenger Demand and CO2 Forecasts' November 2007 states that in 2005 Heathrow emitted 18.2 million tonnes of CO2, with 476,000 flights. Using this as a base line, an extra 226,000 flights at Heathrow (bringing total numbers of flights to 702,000) would result in an additional 8.64 million tonnes of C02. The Energy Information Administration's website documents the emissions of countries across the world: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls
(2) In 2005, Drax emitted 20.8 million tonnes of CO2. The Energy Information Administration's website documents the emissions of countries across the world: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls
