Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
The Labour, LibDem, Conservative, Green party and SNP manifestos – bits on aviation
The election manifestos for the LibDems, Labour, and the Green Party are not available. They all have short sections on aviation. Labour comments (disappointing) include: "Any expansion of airports must pass our tests on air quality, noise pollution, climate change obligations and countrywide benefits. We will examine fiscal and regulatory options to ensure a response to the climate crisis in a way that is fair to consumers and protects the economy." LibDem comments include: "Reduce the climate impact of flying by reforming the taxation of international fights to focus on those who fly the most, while reducing costs for those who take one or two international return fights per year, placing a moratorium on the development of new runways (net) in the UK, opposing any expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted ". The Greens include: "We will lobby against the international rules that prevent action being taken to tax international aviation fuel. ... Ban advertising for flights, and introduce a Frequent Flyer Levy (FFL)to reduce the impact of the 15% of people who take 70% of flights. This FFL only applies to people who take more than one (return) flight a year, discouraging excessive flying... Stop the building of new runways." Conservatives say nothing of any consequence, avoiding mention of carbon.
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Emirates boss says he took too long to accept climate crisis
It took Sir Tim Clark a long time to face up to the climate crisis. He was pretty sceptical about some of the climate claims. He seems to have woken up a bit: "The stark reality of climate change is with us. I'm a climate change believer. I have to say, it took me a long time to get there. "And we [in the aviation industry] aren't doing ourselves any favours by chucking billions of tons of carbon into the air. It's got to be dealt with." It's a frank admission from one of the most powerful people in an industry that has many commercial reasons to bury its head in the sand. He has little faith that electric battery alternatives will ever be capable of powering a big airliner. And while biofuels are an option, they won't be scalable to meet demand. Synthetic fuels offer the best alternative, but these are years from being fit for purpose. But he and the rest of the industry have no solutions to the problem of aviation CO2 emissions, and intend the industry to go on growing - even though realising it is a massive carbon headache. Just keep on polluting, but pretend to care a bit.
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Almost 2,000 people sign petition against Southampton Airport expansion plans
About 1,900 people have signed a petition opposing the expansion of Southampton Airport. The local opposition campaign, Airport eXpansion Opposition (AXO), will be asking Southampton Councillors not to back plans to extend the airport’s runway by 164 metres. AXO members will present the petition to councillors at a full council meeting. The plans to extend the runway and increase the number of flights will increase carbon emissions, and are contrary to the council's plans to cut CO2 locally. The airport will submit its expansion planning application to Eastleigh Borough Council. AXO said that if Southampton is serious about declaring a climate emergency, the airport expansion should not be permitted. Airports and their backers try to use the argument that it is better for people to fly (as they assume people will continue to do, in growing numbers....) from a local airport, citing the carbon emissions of their trip to/from another larger airport. Those emissions are generally small compared to those of the flight itself. And the aim of having a local airport is to get people to fly more, as it is more convenient. Net effect - more flights, more carbon. And more noise and local impacts around the airport.
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Licence to pollute: the sham of carbon offsetting. It does not remove/negate your carbon
People seem to be waking up to the reality of their carbon emissions. Some people anyway. And some are buying “carbon offsets” to supposedly balance out their carbon emissions -especially those from flights - by investing in projects such as forest planting. But the problem is that most offsetting is near worthless. It has been riddled with scams and failures. Planting trees is a great idea, but the trees only reabsorb the carbon over decades, not immediately, and only if they are cared for and survive to become fully grown trees. Just planting saplings, that don't get watered and die in a few years is useless. Offsetting is often paying some organisation/company to do something to reduce CO2 emissions, so they are a bit lower than they might have been. That does NOT remove the carbon that the flight has emitted. That is now in the atmosphere and will remain there for decades or centuries. Offsetting that removes the amount of carbon your flight has emitted needs to do that permanently. Trees are great, but when they die in ? 60 -80 years time, that carbon goes back into the atmosphere. Many offsets are paying for actions that would have been done anyway, as they save the company money. They are not additional savings. Offsetting helps people keep flying, hoping they have salved their conscience with a small donation. That is unhelpful.
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Stansted Airport denies plans to expand to 50 million passengers a year
Stansted Airport has denied that it is planning to expand the airport to a throughput of 50 million passengers a year (mppa), well beyond the 43mppa limit applied for in its 2018 planning application, which continues to be under consideration. Local campaign, Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE), says this denial came from Thomas Hill QC, representing Stansted, on 13th November in the High Court in connection with SSE’s legal challenge over the handling of the current 43 mppa application. However, earlier SSE’s barrister, Paul Stinchcombe QC, had provided the Judge with multiple sources of evidence demonstrating that the airport was planning to expand to 50 mppa and intended to do so in two stages: first, by seeking an 8 mppa uplift in the cap, to 43 mppa; and then later seeking a 7 mppa increase to 50 mppa. The DfT was aware of all this and knew also that the existing runway was capable of handling 50 mppa. Any airport expansion project, or combination of projects, for an increase of over 10 mppa must, by law, be dealt with at national level by the Secretary of State rather than by the Local Planning Authority – i.e. Uttlesford District Council. The verdict of the court is awaited.
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‘Failure on pretty much every aspect’: Government condemned as UK set to miss key environmental goals
Despite promises to tackle green issues, the UK is failing to make progress on crucial targets such as cutting CO2 emissions. An investigation by Greenpeace and the FT shows that the UK government is set to miss legally binding environment targets in 2020 and had failed on “pretty much every aspect” of protecting wildlife and the environment. Despite promises to prioritise green issues, the UK has made little progress on tackling CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, waste and overfishing, and had now increased tree planting or protected biodiversity. One reason for the failure to meet many targets was budget cuts in DEFRA. A Greenpeace spokesman said: “As rivers and air become more toxic, emissions and waste piles continue to rise, our oceans emptied of fish and countryside becomes devoid of wildlife, the government must be held to account for its failure to protect people’s health and nature.” On energy, only 11% of the UK’s energy was produced through renewables in 2018. This figure has grown by around 1% every year since 2014 (meant to be 15%). UK is on track to miss its carbon budget for 2023-27, and 2028-32. UK aviation emissions continue to rise.
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Plans to expand Bristol Airport accused of being flawed; decision put off till early 2020
A decision on Bristol Airport's major expansion bid will not be made this year. They submitted proposals to boost passenger numbers from 10 million to 12 million a year by the mid-2020s, and to expand the airport's on-site infrastructure. A decision had been due over the summer but people are continuing to comment - there are currently about 3,780 objections and 1,800 letters of support. Reasons for opposing the expansion include climate change, traffic levels, air pollution and noise. When they declared a "climate emergency", Bath and North East Somerset Council members also voted to oppose the airport's expansion, amid concerns about increased congestion on rural roads in their area. There is also doubt about alleged economic benefit. The airport and its supporters always talk up the possibility of more jobs, and improved "access international export markets." In reality, the majority of air passengers are on leisure journeys. The application will be considered by North Somerset Council's planning and regulatory committee meeting in 2020, with possible dates the 22 January, 19 February and 18 March.
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Airlines accused of hypocrisy over ‘fuel-tankering’ that hugely increases airline CO2 emissions, to save a few £s
"Fuel tankering" means airlines fill up with a lot of fuel, at an airport where fuel is cheap, and then fly around carrying a huge extra load, to avoid spending slightly more for fuel at a destination airport. This means a small financial saving, but hugely higher carbon emissions - from carrying extra tonnes of fuel sof hundreds of miles (and the energy needed to lift it to 35,000 ft ...). This is a common practice within the industry, even while they are doing greenwashing about minimal weight savings on flights, to cut energy use. BBC Panorama found BA's planes generated an extra 18,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2018 through fuel tankering. And cost savings made on a single flight can be as small as just over £10 - though savings can run to hundreds of £s. Researchers have estimated that one in five of all European flights involve some element of fuel tankering. Critics say the widespread use of tankering undermines the industry's (hollow) claims that it is committed to reducing its CO2 emissions. Eurocontrol has calculated that tankering in Europe resulted in 286,000 tonnes of extra fuel being burnt every year, and the emission of an additional 901,000 tonnes of CO2.
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Ten celebrities cause 10,000 times more CO2 emissions from flying than the average person
Professor Stefan Gössling, from Lund University, has written about the immense carbon emissions of a range of high profile celebrities - and the damaging effect this has on the perceptions of society on the desirability of this hyper-mobility, by jet. He says: "The jet-setting habits of Bill Gates and Paris Hilton mean that they produce an astonishing 10,000 times more carbon emissions from flying than the average person." ... "This highlights the insane disparity in carbon emissions between the rich and the poor." ... "Recently published figures reveal that 1% of English residents are responsible for nearly 20% of all flights abroad". ... "major clash about the social and moral norms surrounding air travel. For decades, frequent fliers have been seen as living desirable lifestyles. To be a global traveller automatically infers a high social standing." ... "But more and more people are beginning to question what is desirable, justifiable and indeed “normal” to consume. In the case of flying, this has come to be known as “flight shame”." ... We need to "stem the growing class of very affluent people who contribute very significantly to emissions and encourage everyone else to aspire to such damaging lifestyles."
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Councils tell government to review Heathrow expansion following climate change developments
Local authorities opposed to Heathrow expansion say that changes in Government policy on climate change mean the case for a 3rd runway should be reviewed urgently. The national policy statement (ANPS) which included support for Heathrow expansion was designated in June 2018 - at a time when the UK was committed to an 80% cut in CO2 emissions, from the 1990 level, by 2050. But in June 2019 following the advice of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) the Government amended the commitment to a 100% cut – with the strengthening based on ‘significant developments in climate change knowledge’. This same logic needs to be applied to the ANPS. Under planning legislation a national policy statement must be reviewed if there has been a ‘significant change in any circumstances on the basis of which any of the policy set out in the statement was decided.’ And there has been. In September 2019 the CCC told the Government that the planning assumption for aviation should be to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 - and measures should be put in place that ‘limit growth in demand to at most 25% above current levels by 2050.’ The Heathrow case needs urgent review in relation to climate policy, and also noise. The councils say that Heathrow expansion is never going to happen - the obstacles are insurmountable.