Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Bristol Airport expansion case highlights loopholes in national climate policy,
The Bristol the campaign group against the airport's expansion, BAAN, has successfully secured an appeal hearing at the High Court, this coming autumn, where a judge will consider whether a decision to allow the airport to expand was lawful. Lawyers bringing the case want to emphasise that the cumulative climate impact of many airport expansions across the country is not being considered properly. Currently the UK has no airports policy, and no proper policy on aviation carbon emissions. As well as this omission, planning law looks at the emissions from the airport activities on the ground, ignoring the CO2 emissions from the planes, and flights facilitated by an enlarged airport. Climate and carbon issues are set at a national level, enabling the Planning Inspectorate (PI) to ignore impact of specific airports. If BAAN is successful the airport's planning permission would no longer be valid. The PI would need to take the judge’s ruling into account when making the decision again and possibly re-run parts of last year’s inquiry. That would set a precedent.
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New study: Expanding the EU ETS to non-European flights would significantly reduce aviation CO2
A new analysis, commissioned by Carbon Market Watch and Transport & Environment (T&E), shows the expansion of the scope of the EU’s Emission Trading System (EU ETS) for aviation could bring several environmental and economic benefits without significantly increasing operating costs for airlines. The study showed that including flights to areas outside the EU would lead to significantly higher emission reductions, create more balanced pricing between low-cost carriers and legacy airlines and generate higher EU ETS revenues that can be used to decarbonise aviation, all with limited costs for airlines. Currently, only intra-European Economic Area (EEA) flights are included in the EU ETS proposal, but the study shows that expanding the scope to all departing flights, not only European, would result in 50% more emissions reductions. Including all departing and arriving flights could lead to reductions113% greater than the EEC’s proposal. The cost would be minor, compared to the total operating costs of airlines - some 3.4 to 5.5% more, or a maximum 6.8% more. This would be far more effective in limiting CO2 than the feeble international CORSIA scheme.
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UK government in court over ‘unlawful’ and ‘irresponsible’ net zero climate strategy
Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project are going to the High Court (8th June) to challenge the government about its "net zero" strategy, which is both “irresponsible” and “unlawful”. The groups say the government’s plans are in breach of climate law as they omit vital details and “completely fail” to show how targets would be met. It is the first time the government has faced a legal challenge to its net zero strategy, which was formally published in October. The strategy outlines how the UK is supposed to emit no more carbon in 2050 than it did in 1990. It proposes various measures including the construction of more nuclear power stations, restoring peat, encouraging walking and cycling, hydrogen as fuel and CCS. But the strategy does not detail emissions reductions each proposed policy is meant to achieve. They argue this means it is unclear if the initiatives can deliver on the targets the government is legally required to meet under the Climate Change Act. So without the details, government progress, with the targets in Carbon Budgets, can not be checked adequately. There is nothing in policy or realistic targets for aviation carbon.
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Client Earth joining legal action against Dutch airline KLM for greenwashing
ClientEarth and 2 Dutch organisations are taking legal action against Dutch airline KLM, over misleading marketing that promotes the sustainability of flying. Instead of the only action that will actually cut aviation carbon emissions - fewer flights - the industry pretends that it can continue to grow, using novel technologies, mainly different fuels. KLM's marketing campaign attempts to convince consumers otherwise, giving a false impression of the sustainability of its flights and plans to address the climate harm of flying. The legal action focuses on KLM’s Fly Responsibly ad campaign and its offers for customers to buy carbon offset products to reduce the impact of their flight by funding reforestation projects or KLM’s purchase of biofuels. If KLM doesn’t comply with demands to cease greenwashing, the lawsuit will argue that its campaigns and carbon ‘compensation’ schemes are misleading its customers, and violate European consumer law. Instead of giving them real information about the carbon impact of a flight, KLM’s marketing undermines the urgent action needed to minimise climate damage, giving the impression that all is OK, and flying can continue - and be guilt free.
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Report says airport capacity constraints and demand reduction on flying needed to hit UK net zero target
A report by low carbon energy consultants Element Energy (EE) analysing the UK government’s ‘Jet Zero’ strategy to hit net zero aviation emissions by 2050, with interim reduction targets for the 2030s, concludes the scenarios are over-optimistic. The report concludes that measures to limit demand for air travel would be more effective and less risky as a means of reducing carbon emissions. EE estimates the aviation sector will need to cut emissions faster and deeper in the near term than the government is currently projecting. The report argues that the government’s plans overestimate the likely improvements in operations, technology and alternative fuels, along with out-of-sector solutions such as engineered GHG removals, and are unlikely to be developed at the speed and scale necessary. An obvious way to limit growth in air travel demand is to stop airports expanding, at least until there are proven, workable ways to fuel aircraft without emitting carbon or creating contrails. It is highly risky to depend on unproven, speculative technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
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New “Travel Smart” campaign asks businesses to reduce their air travel and report on progress
A new T&E (Transport & Environment) ranking of corporate air travel shows that some companies are reducing the amount their staff fly, but most are not doing enough. The ranking, launched as part of T&E’s new Travel Smart campaign, grades 230 US and European companies according to eight indicators, relating to emissions reduction targets, reporting and air travel emissions. The analysis, which includes 39 UK businesses, sheds light on the significant efforts certain UK businesses have still to make to reduce their corporate travel emissions. Some companies make no specific effort to reduce business travel emissions, nor disclose their air travel emissions. Many companies can be as effective and even more efficient by flying less. Cutting down on business travel makes financial sense for companies. The Travel Smart campaign, launched with a coalition of 12 partners, asks companies to commit publicly to an absolute target of at least 50% reduction in flying compared to the 2019 level, by 2025 or sooner; to implement reductions in flying and choose other modes of connectivity and transport; and to report on progress towards decreased emissions.
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NGOs write to Aviation Minister asking that airport expansions are stopped until aviation CO2 emissions can actually be reduced
Currently there are expansion plans by 7 UK airports (Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Bristol, Leeds Bradford, Southampton and Manston) and government has no coherent policy on aviation carbon emissions in relation to the UK "net zero" by 2050 target. So a group of NGOs (AEF, AirportWatch, Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance, Greenpeace, Possible and T&E) has written to Aviation Minister, Robert Courts, calling on the Government to withdraw its policy support for airport expansion until aviation carbon emissions are actually falling, and wider UK emissions are substantially below a 1.5C-compliant trajectory. It also voices concerns that the Government’s draft Jet Zero strategy is built around assumptions that future increases in sustainable fuels and carbon removals will occur after 2030, but with no clear policy plan to ensure that happens. The letter points out that neither the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) for a new runway at Heathrow nor the Making Best Use (MBU) policy for other airports – both released in 2018 – have yet been assessed for their compatibility with achieving net zero aviation by 2050. Planning authorities should not be left reliant on out-of-date policies when determining applications for airport expansion - as happens now.
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Element Energy report shows air travel demand reduction is essential, to cut UK aviation carbon
New report for the Aviation Environment Federation, by Element Energy, looks at the reality of the UK government's reliance on novel technologies to eventually cut aviation carbon emissions. The DfT is depending on greatly improved aircraft energy efficiency, as well as electric planes, planes powered by hydrogen, and a huge component of new lower-carbon fuels, SAF (sustainable aviation fuels) replacing kerosene, and carbon capture and storage. The DfT does not consider reducing demand for flying, and considers an increase of 70% above the level in 2018, by 2050, as acceptable. Element Energy show the aspiration of 2% annual plane efficiency gains is unrealistic, and even 1.5% will be difficult. They consider that novel fuels might, at best, produce a carbon saving of 60%, not the 100% the DfT hopes for. The price of carbon in future needs to be high, for international flights, and if it does not increase enough, flying demand will not decrease - to the DfT forecasts are unreliable. The study concludes that, even with a high proportion of SAF being used, and optimal fuel efficiency gains, by 2050 there would need to be a reduction in flights and passengers of around 45%, if the sector is to achieve the target of 15MtCO2 (even that is a huge amount of carbon).
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TUI to offer train tickets instead of short-haul flights to 6 cities, from the Netherlands
Holiday company TUI will replace plane seats with train tickets on some routes from the Netherlands, in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint (while continuing to encourage more people to fly on holidays). Passengers booking Tui city breaks will be offered the chance to travel by rail from the Netherlands to six European cities - to Copenhagen, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Milan and Florence. The move will be launched by TUI’s Dutch division as part of a collaboration with train travel start-up Green City Trip. Flight tickets will still be available for those routes.
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For 20 years the aviation industry has missed every [except one] of their sustainability targets – that will probably continue
A report commissioned by the climate charity Possible assessed every target set by the airline industry since 2000 and found that nearly all had been missed, revised or quietly ignored. This undermines a UK government plan to leave airlines to reduce their emissions through self-regulation. There are a range of targets that cover various measure of carbon efficiency. The levels of ambition underpinning the targets were generally insufficient, even if met, to reduce the absolute climate impact of aviation in the context of ongoing growth in demand. Business behaviour does not appear to be driven by environmental targets. The target setting often appears to function principally as a tactic for giving an impression to the public and policymakers, of progress and action being taken to address aviation’s environmental impacts in order to prevent any policy barriers to ongoing growth in the industry. The research found unclear definitions, opaque monitoring and inconsistent reporting made many targets difficult to assess, with many also suddenly changed, replaced or dropped. Even if met, they were insufficiently ambitious to reduce aviation’s climate impact.