Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Boris on Heathrow after Supreme Court judgement: any expansion must meet strict air quality and climate criteria
Boris Johnson, with a constituency near Heathrow, was always a vociferous critic of the plans for a 3rd runway. When Heathrow took their appeal, against the ruling of the Appeal Court against the ANPS in February, the government did not join them. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that the ANPS is legal, Boris has not said anything in favour of it. Allegra Stratton, his press secretary, said Heathrow still needed to convince the Planning Inspectorate that it met rigorous environmental benchmarks before being allowed to proceed through the DCO process. She said the “point the PM would make now” was that “any expansion must meet strict criteria on air quality noise and climate change and the government will come forward with a response shortly”. Heathrow may not be able to raise the necessary funds for the runway. Boris and Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, will be under pressure to redraft the ANPS, as it was written in 2018 and is woefully out of date on carbon. Life has moved on since then; the UK now has to cut CO2 emissions by 100% by 2050 (from 1990 level), not the 80% target of 2018. There are now new UK targets - advised by the Committee on Climate Change - for a 68% cut in CO2 by 2030, and a 78% cut by 2035. Expanding Heathrow cannot be squared with that.
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Councils that legally challenged Heathrow expansion say Supreme Court Heathrow ruling ‘changes nothing’
The group of Councils deeply opposed to Heathrow expansion said the Supreme Court ruling, that the ANPS is legal, changes nothing and called on the airport to abandon once and for all its bid for a 3rd runway. Residents in all these boroughs are badly affected by noise of Heathrow planes. Wandsworth Council urged Heathrow to concentrate on working with the aviation industry to achieve zero carbon emissions and an end to night flights. The Leader of Wandsworth Council, Cllr Ravi Govindia, said: “The ruling does not give Heathrow a green light for a third runway. It says nothing about how expansion could be delivered in the face of legally binding emissions targets. The world has changed since Chris Grayling’s decision in 2018. Heathrow will never be able to build a third runway. It’s time for the airport to admit defeat and put all its energy into working with the aviation industry to achieve the net zero goal. The Government must now as a matter of urgency produce a new aviation strategy for the UK which properly takes account of its legal commitment on emissions reductions. And Heathrow could put an end to the early morning arrivals, the noise of which causes so much upset, disturbing the sleep of thousands, putting their health at risk.
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Heathrow appeal upheld … but reprieve disguises impossibility of 3rd runway plan
Commenting on the judgement by the Supreme Court today, upholding Heathrow’s appeal that the Airports NPS is legal, the Richmond Heathrow Campaign said the world has changed a lot since 2018. This is not least because of Covid-19. Climate change is the greatest risk to demand and last week the Climate Change Committee’s advice on the 6th Carbon Budget emphasised no net increase in UK airport capacity and that an increase at one airport means a reduction elsewhere - in other words levelling down (not up) the regions. If Heathrow Airport Limited still wants a 3rd runway it will have to restart the already delayed planning process with diminishing chance of success. The pandemic has highlighted Heathrow’s lack of financial resilience and the improbability of raising finance for very expensive expansion in the face of demand constrained by climate risk. Heathrow should not waste billions of pounds on ill-judged expansion. Surely shareholders don’t want to replace a steady cash flow with the enormous project and financial risk from expansion under the evolving circumstances?
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“Heathrow expansion remains very far from certain”: Friends of the Earth reacts as Supreme Court rules on policy allowing third runway
Friends of the Earth UK (FoE) was one of the organisations that took their challenge of the High Court decision on Heathrow expansion, and the Airports NPS (ANPS), to the Court of Appeal. Heathrow took that judgement, that the ANPS was illegal (of no legal effect) to the Supreme Court, which has now ruled that the ANPS is valid and legal. Friends of the Earth say the judgement is "not a ‘green light’ for a 3rd Heathrow runway. It makes clear that full climate considerations remain to be addressed and resolved at the planning stage, where Friends of the Earth will continue the challenge against a 3rd runway. In addition, the Government has been recently warned by its own advisers (the CCC) against net airport expansion." FoE also say green jobs, low-carbon travel and the health and wellbeing of everyone must be government priority for 2021 and beyond. A 3rd runway is far from certain, with many chances to block it in the planning stages. The UK's obligations and targets have become much more challenging since the ANPS was designated and are only expected to get tougher, especially in light of the advice last week by the Committee on Climate Change that, in order to meet Net Zero Target, there should be no net increase in airport capacity.
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Supreme Court rules that the Airports NPS is legal; climate issues of a Heathrow runway would have to be decided at the DCO stage
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Airports NPS is lawful. In February 2020 the Appeal Court had ruled that it was not, on climate grounds. The ANPS is the national policy framework which governs the construction of a Heathrow 3rd runway. Any future application for development consent to build this runway will be considered against the policy framework in the ANPS. The ANPS does not grant development consent in its own right. The Supreme Court rejected the legal challenges by Friends of the Earth, and Plan B Earth, that the then Secretary of State, Chris Grayling, had not taken climate properly into account, nor the UK's commitments under the Paris Agreement. These are tricky points of law, and definition of the term "government policy" rather than the reality of climate policy. Heathrow is now able to continue with plans to apply for a Development Consent Order (DCO) which is the planning stage of the runway scheme.The Supreme Court said at the DCO stage, Heathrow would have to show "that the development would be compatible with the up-to-date requirements under the Paris Agreement and the CCA 2008 measures as revised to take account of those requirements" and "The Court further holds that future applications [for the runway] will be assessed against the emissions targets and environmental policies in force at that later date rather than those set out in the ANPS."
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Tim Crosland (Plan B Earth) broke Supreme Court judgement embargo as “an act of civil disobedience” that will be treated as a “contempt of court”
The Appeal Court ruled in February that the ANPS was illegal, as it had not taken proper account of the Paris Agreement and the climate targets for the UK. The case was partly on complicated legal points about to what extent Paris-related obligations were part of UK law. The two parties taking the challenge to the Supreme Court are Friends of the Earth UK and Plan B Earth. A day before the court date, Tim Crosland - representing Plan B Earth - decided (on being given a pre-copy of the judgement) in ‘an act of civil disobedience,' to publicise the decision, though not the details of the judgement. This will be held as contempt of court. Several papers published news of this, but then withdrew comments, for fear of also being held in contempt of court. Tim Crosland believes that the Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling at the time in 2018) should have acted in line with trying to avoid a 1.5C rise in global temperature, not just a 2C rise, and this decision by the Supreme Court puts the well-being and lives of millions of people - especially young people - at risk, from climate related impacts.
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‘Net zero’ climate targets sound great. But there are pitfalls – read the fine print
Countries are increasingly saying they will attempt to be carbon-neutral (net zero) by around 2050. But caution needs to be exercised in understanding the net zero claims. There are some key problems: 1. Do the plans apply to all greenhouse gases, or just CO2? That would mean including agriculture emissions, eg. methane. 2. There is a lack of intermediate hard targets before 2050, and it is useless to have higher emissions between now and then. It is the cumulative CO2 that matters. 3. How much of a net zero commitment will be fulfilled with short-term emissions cuts, like planting trees. And how much will come from “negative emissions technologies” which permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Some of the tree planting schemes have been shown to be impractical and unworkable. 4. The fine print of the pledges has to be checked, as there are no established principles or guidelines, so they can differ between countries and be "full of loopholes." 5. The plans generally leave out the international aviation and shipping sectors, and probably also the embodied carbon in imports. All those can make up a huge % of a country's total emissions. 6. Plans for future emissions cuts are less useful than employing technologies and policies that start cutting emissions now.
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Dutch court ruled that the Dutch government is not required to attach climate conditions to its bailout for KLM
Earlier in the year, Air France-KLM received around €10 billion in various loans, to get it through the Covid pandemic. It then asked for another €6 billion in November. In June there was the suggestion that this government money was only given with various conditions, such as that the number of night flights from Schiphol will be cut, and KLM will have to halve CO2 per passenger-kilometre by 2030. In September, Greenpeace Netherlands took legal action against the Dutch government, for not imposing climate conditions to bailout funding. Now the Dutch court has ruled that the Dutch government is not required to attach climate conditions to its bailout package for KLM. Greenpeace had argued that the bailout conflicted with the duty of care of the Dutch state towards the population. Greenpeace said the verdict is "a missed opportunity for our present and our future. It’s incredibly disappointing to have a government that actually uses state aid to enable KLM and other major polluters to continue wrecking our planet." Campaigners are not deterred. Changes could be required, such as scrapping all short-haul flights of under a thousand kilometres, like the many each day to Brussels or Paris.
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Climate Change Committee – recommendations to government – lots on aviation carbon changes and policies needed
The Committee on Climate Change has published its guidance for the UK government on its Sixth Carbon Budget, for the period 2033 - 37, and how to reach net-zero by 2050. There is a great deal of detail, many documents, many recommendations - with plenty on aviation. The intention is for UK aviation to be net-zero by 2050, though the CCC note there are not yet proper aviation policies by the UK government to achieve this. International aviation must be included in the Sixth Carbon budget. If the overall aviation CO2 emissions can be reduced enough, it might be possible to have 25% more air passengers in 2050 than in 2018. The amount of low-carbon fuels has been increased from the CCC's earlier maximum realistic estimates of 5-10%, up to perhaps 25% by 2050, with "just over two-thirds of this coming from biofuels and the remainder from carbon-neutral synthetic jet fuel ..." Residual CO2 emissions will need to be removed from the air, and international carbon offsets are not permitted. There is an assumption of 1.4% efficiency improvement per year, or at the most 2.1%. There "should be no net expansion of UK airport capacity unless the sector is on track to sufficiently outperform its net emissions trajectory." The role of non-CO2 is recognised, but not included in carbon budgets; its heating effect must not increase after 2050. And lots more ...
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Proposed planning policy changes could impact high carbon developments like Heathrow expansion (and Cumbria coal mine)
Several members of the House of Lords have said that National Planning Policy Statements (NPS) across industries should be updated to consider the UK’s commitments under the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. Labour peer Lord Whitty said that “the whole of the NPS needs to be revised in light of the commitment to net zero” and added that this should apply to “all sectors”. If the NPSs are revised, that could have major implications for construction projects going forward, such as airport expansion (Heathrow and Gatwick want new runways). The legal case that went to the Supreme Court on 7th October was about the Airports NPS and whether it adequately took into account the Paris Agreement. The decision by the court might be given by January 2021. The legal challenges by Plan B and Friends of the Earth said that carbon reduction targets in the agreement "needed to be taken into account". Another project which could be affected is the Woodhouse coal mine in Cumbria, for which Cumbria County Council approved the planning application in October, despite objections of its likelihood of making the UK's climate goals less achievable. The final decision still rests with communities secretary Robert Jenrick. The issue of climate needs to be addressed in an adequate and consistent way in every NPS.