Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
Transport & Environment says UK should count international flights from UK in CO2 emissions targets
Transport NGO, Transport & Environment (T&E) has urged the UK to take proper account of carbon emissions of international flights taking off from the UK. These must be included in the government’s calculations on reaching net zero emissions - by 2050 or earlier - as part of a “green” recovery for the airline industry. Currently only the carbon from domestic fights is properly included in UK carbon budgets. Four airlines in UK (BA, Ryanair, EasyJet and Whizz) have already had £1.8 billion in loans from the Bank of England scheme. T&E calculates that more than £30bn has been promised or given in bailouts to airlines across Europe due to Covid-19. They say the recovery of the industry must be sustainable and tied to policies to cut carbon emissions. Among these, it said international aviation emissions must be included in the government targets to reduce CO2 emissions. The Committee on Climate Change recommended (September 2019) that emissions from international flights should be included in net zero calculations, but the government has yet to respond to the committee’s letter.
Click here to view full story...
Four airlines have so far benefited from £1.8 billion of Bank of England lending, for Covid crisis (with no CO2 conditions)
British Airways, EasyJet, Wizz Air and Ryanair have taken £1.8bn from the government’s rescue finance lending. Money has come from the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility. This is despite ministers’ assurances on a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Other high carbon sectors have also benefited. The 4 airlines alone have taken £1.8bn in lending from the scheme so far. Aircraft engine-maker Rolls-Royce has taken a £300m bailout. Campaigners say the government must attach new conditions to the support it is giving, which could top £67bn in total to, to all sector companies - rising from the e so far borrowed more than £16bn borrowed so far. Society needs to decide if assistance should be given to high carbon industries, at a time when carbon emissions need to be drastically cut, quickly. Greenpeace said: “Airlines have been given exactly what the chancellor, the prime minister, economists and the public said they should not be given – billions in cheap and easy loans to keep them polluting, without any commitments to reduce their emissions or even keep their workers on the payroll.”
Click here to view full story...
Southampton Airport expansion plans go to second consultation – no date yet set
The airport plans to extend the runway by 164m to allow for larger 190-seater aircraft, and more flights. It wants to double the number of passengers. Its plans will go to a second public consultation, by Eastleigh council, before a decision is made. Environmental campaigners and two neighbouring councils, Southampton and Winchester, have raised concerns over noise and air pollution. The airport makes the usual statements about lots of new jobs, and local economic boost (in reality, more of the passengers will be people in the area taking holidays abroad, taking their leisure money out of the UK). Local group, AXO, Airport Expansion Opposition, has been leading opposition to the plans. A final decision is expected to be made by Eastleigh Borough Council, but everything is held up by the Covid pandemic, and no date has been set. The council said: "We are awaiting amended information in support of the application. Once we have received this, we will undertake a full re-consultation on the proposed runway extension."
Click here to view full story...
Open letter to ICAO – the CORSIA scheme should not be weakened, just because of Covid
Thirteen organisations concerned with aviation carbon emissions and carbon trading, have written to ICAO to ask that they stick to the intentions for how the CORSIA scheme is set up, and do not weaken it. The stated purpose of CORSIA is to help the international aviation sector achieve “carbon-neutral growth from 2020”. It is due to use as a baseline the aviation CO2 emissions from 2019 and 2020. However, with the Covid pandemic, airline carbon emissions will be much lower than anticipated this year. If ICAO used 2019 and 2020, the amount of carbon the sector could emit, and the cost of emitting it, would be far lower than anticipated. So IATA wants to change the rules, so the carbon baseline only considers 2019, not including 2020, which would result in significantly lower offsetting requirements for airlines compared to the current CORSIA design. In fact, under most recovery scenarios, the change sought by IATA would eliminate all offsetting requirements for the duration of the CORSIA pilot phase and potentially several years thereafter. The rules need to be adhered to.
Click here to view full story...
“Aviation Climate Alliance” – first newsletter – what could the post-Covid aviation sector look like?
Many organisations are united in their determination that when the aviation sector emerges from the Covid pandemic and lockdown, it will have to be slimmed down, and commit to effective and real cuts in its carbon emissions. There will need to be low-carbon jobs, in place of jobs in high carbon sectors that will need to change. A new informal grouping has been formed, between trade union and environmental campaigners, to help push for environmental and climate conditions being placed on any government assistance for the aviation sector, and more "green" jobs in future. It is named the "Aviation Climate Alliance", and its membership includes AirportWatch, the PCS union, the Stay Grounded movement, the Campaign Against Climate Change, and the Aviation Communities Forum (ACA). It will produce regular newsletters, putting many of the news items and relevant pieces of information together, to help campaigners access the news and facts. The first newsletter has been produced, and can be seen (see link). It was kindly put together by Tahir Latif, of the PCS union. To be added to the mailing list, tahirlatif51@icloud.com.
Click here to view full story...
Danish companies hope to make “sustainable” fuel, if they can get enough off-shore wind electricity
Copenhagen Airports, and several big companies in fuels for road, marine and air transport, have formed a partnership, to attempt to develop an industrial-scale production facility to produce allegedly "sustainable" fuels. They plan to produce fuels, including hydrogen, by using electricity, starting by 2023, for buses, trucks, maritime vessels, and planes. The total electrolyser capacity would be 1.3 gigawatts, which would likely make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its kind. There are the usual claims of lower carbon emissions, and more jobs. To lower carbon emissions, it has to use renewably generated electricity, which would come from offshore wind power from off the island of Bornholm. There has to be enough of this electricity. All low carbon fuels have cost much more than fossil fuel equivalents, and this would be the case for these fuels, unless there was very cheap surplus electricity reliably available. The project is promoting itself as a low-carbon way out of the Covid pandemic, creating new low-carbon jobs, and making Denmark a leader. The country has the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 70% by 2030 compared to 1990.
Click here to view full story...
DfT ‘refuses to back down’ over £27bn roads legal challenge over carbon emissions
In April the Transport Action Network (TAN) revealed its intentions to launch a legal application to the High Court, as the DfT ignored environmental legislation in approving the five-year funding plan. Now the DfT have given TAN's lawyers its official response. It has “refused to back down”. The legal challenge by TAN was made, as a result of the judgement by the Appeal Court in February, on the Heathrow case. It ruled that the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) was illegal, as proper consideration had not been given to carbon emissions and the UK's obligations under the Paris Agreement. The DfT letter claims, rather improbably, that decarbonisation will be addressed ‘at a society-wide level’ and its largest ever roads plan in fact ‘is a fully-integrated part of this wider effort to reach net zero emissions’. The legal challenge, by the same lawyers who won the Heathrow case, will proceed with the case on road building. As the courts found the ANPS was illegal, any other NPS will have to take carbon properly into account. Heathrow is appealing to the Supreme court on the February ruling, with a hearing on the 9th and 10th October.
Click here to view full story...
Bath and North East Somerset Council rejects Bristol Airport application to increase night flights in summer months
Bath and North East Somerset Council has rejected an application by Bristol Airport to increase the number of night flights. The airport wants to increase the number of night flights to 4,000 throughout the whole year, starting in summer 2021. Currently the airport is allowed 3,000 night flights throughout the summer months and 1,000 in winter. The airport wants to be able to move some of their winter allocation to the summer, when demand is higher. Bath and North East Somerset Council rejected the application - stating it would have a negative impact on people living in towns near the airport. The request for more flights comes after the council opposed the expansion of Bristol Airport in March 2019. Then in March 2020 North Somerset Council threw out the plans, (which included increasing passenger numbers by an extra two million each year and building more car parks) on the grounds they were “incompatible” with the council’s declaration of a climate emergency. The extra night flights would cause noise nuisance to people in both councils.
Click here to view full story...
The Covid-19 crisis should be the catalyst for “greening” the world’s airlines
The Covid pandemic provides a vital opportunity to reduce the scale of the aviation sector, and its carbon emissions. Any rescue packages for airlines or airports need to come with "green" strings, such as lower CO2 emissions and more efficient taxation, to cut demand for air travel. As oil prices are so low, there is the danger that air tickets will be cheap, once flying resumes - even if airlines can only sell a % of their seats, due to "social distancing." The sector has enjoyed low taxes for too long. It is time jet fuel was properly taxed, especially on domestic routes - where there is direct competition with rail travel. The Covid crisis has weakened airline claims that they should be treated as profit-seeking independent companies rather than public entities with social responsibilities. European governments have probably agreed €12.7bn in bailouts, with another €17.1bn under discussion. Even before Covid the airline industry was feeling public pressure from “the Greta effect”, "flying shame", Extinction Rebellion and the Appeal Court decision to block Heathrow expansion on climate grounds. The CO2 from aviation needs to be incorporated fully into national climate targets.
Click here to view full story...
Greenpeace activists occupy a Schiphol runway to protest coronavirus aid to polluting aviation sector
Greenpeace activists occupied a runway at Schiphol airport on 14th May morning, to protest against the billion €s in support going to the aviation sector during the coronavirus crisis. Greenpeace wants strict sustainability conditions to be attached to this aid. The Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military and is responsible for airport security, said it would detain the 11 Greenpeace activists who were protesting, and remove them from the Aalsmeerbaan runway at Schiphol. The runway is currently being used to park KLM planes. They brought a small bridge with them to get across the ditch that separates the public road from the secured area at Schiphol, and bicycles to get to the runway as quickly as possible. Greenpeace said: "KLM emits more CO2 than the largest coal-fired power station in the Netherlands." The government should only give KLM funding if it has to cut carbon emissions. This has to be done by more fuel efficiency, fewer flights, and short haul flights replaced by train journeys. Greenpeace also wants conditions attached to aid for other major polluters.