Third runway shows what our leaders believe in
costly environmental decisions ever made. It sets a trajectory for aviation to
emit more than a third of the UK’s greenhouse gas emission quota by the middle
of this century.
and agriculture. It will also seriously damage our international standing on climate
policy.In the UK, and Scotland, we have set carbon emission reduction ta
tightening carbon limits.
However, this is not “job done”. There are no legal teeth to deliver reductions
to meet this policy. These can only come with measures to tackle emission sources.
Putting a price on carbon, and trading it as a commodity, will help find the
lowest cost across technologies and countries. All emission sources will eventually
be included, with aviation and shipping no exception. This may be the best way
to encourage emission reductions for international transport.
Flying and shipping transcend countries’ borders. As many emissions occur over
water, or in transit through other countries, they defy traditional climate policies.
The most likely option for allocation is given by the government’s own advisers,
the Committee on Climate Change. Emissions will be accounted for on a “bunker
fuel basis” – the UK will be responsible for the emissions of flights and ships,
leaving its airports and ports.
So, what are these emissions likely to be? Forecasts of unconstrained growth
(precipitated, by, for example, expansion of Heathrow) have been provided by the
Department for Transport. Its “central bunker fuel predictions” suggest UK-related
emissions for domestic and international flights could reach about 60 million
tonnes by 2030, then remain relatively stable for the next two decades.
By 2050, if we follow this anticipated projection, the report concludes that
35 per cent of the country’s total emissions quota will be attributable to aviation.
We will be able to deal with this in a couple of ways: either we reduce emissions
elsewhere to compensate, or buy credits to make up the shortfall.
Let’s take these in turn. The Committee on Climate Change anticipates we will
rely on electricity more and more as a power source for heat and transport. This
is because, if generated via renewables, electricity provides a viable alternative
to burning fossil fuels. However, with 70 per cent of our electricity generation
capacity due to be obsolete in the next 20 years, and the land constraints on
wind power, it will be almost miraculous if we plug this gap, let alone switch
from gas for our homes, and petrol for our cars or compensate for rising aviation
emissions.
That leaves us with the carbon markets. A widely anticipated cost of carbon,
as the markets kick-in post 2012, is £150 per tonne of . Emissions, per passenger
on a return flight to New York, are 1.3 tonnes of . That means the cost of a ticket
will need to rise by £200 to compensate for its climate impact. But there is another
sting in the tail. The effect of aviation on the climate is higher than impact
alone, due to the white contrails we see and invisible nitrous oxides. Current
estimates are that these factors at least double, and perhaps quintuple effect.
Could this mean a £1,000 carbon supplement on the price of a New York ticket?
There are also huge political repercussions on the Heathrow decision. December’s
Copenhagen conference, to hammer out a post-Kyoto agreement, will influence the
geopolitical landscape of the next century.
In embracing a UK expansion of air travel, the government has undermined our
international climate credibility. Our hand, for negotiating targets and settlements,
will be weakened.
This decision will be unimaginable in a few years time. The Copenhagen settlement
will have laid the foundations for a global carbon market, making aviation an
expensive luxury. Fuel prices that put airlines out of business not 12 months
ago will be at new highs.
In the world’s eyes, we have demonstrated our true environmental colours. We
have bet on brown, when the world’s money is moving to green.
• Charles Henderson is director of Climate Futures.
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