Climate Change News
Below are news items on climate change – many with relevance to aviation
European Commission scraps plan to label tar sands as polluting – it causes at least 20% more CO2 emissions in its production
The European Commission has proposed scrapping a mandatory requirement to label tar sands oil as highly polluting, after years of industry opposition. The new proposal abandons one obstacle to Canada shipping crude from tar sands to Europe, and will draw strong criticism from environmental campaigners and Green politicians. To extract the oil the tar sands have to be blasted with steam, using large amounts of gas and water. In 2011, the EU agreed that tar sands should be given a carbon value 20% higher than for conventional oil. However, member states could not agree, and the Commission has been reconsidering the proposal ever since. The new proposal released only requires refiners to report an average of the feedstock used. They do not have to single out tar sands. It retains, however, a method for calculating the carbon intensity of different fuel types over their lifecycle. Some of this very high carbon oil is now making its way to Europe, and some will be turned into jet fuel. This will further increase the emissions from aviation, if the fuel used has required high carbon emissions in its production.
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New AEF Policy Briefing setting out how a new south east runway is not compatible with UK climate policy
The Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), a policy-focused UK NGO, is producing a series of policy briefings, to inform the airport expansion/runway debate. The issue remains whether to build a new runway, not merely where. AEF's new briefing "AIRPORT EXPANSION AND CLIMATE CHANGE - Is a new runway compatible with climate policy?" is a concise, easy to read, document setting out the facts very clearly. A key point is that a new runway would have very significant climate implications that fall outside the remit of the Airports Commission to address. AEF explains how both the Committee on Climate Change and Airports Commission have stated that demand for flights in the UK will have to be restricted to prevent CO2 emissions from the aviation sector overshooting the level consistent with the Climate Change Act. However, neither has identified how this can be achieved if a new runway is built, leaving a policy gap. That gap would result in the UK’s climate targets being compromised. The options are to dramatically increase the cost of flying (by the UK acting alone), restrict capacity available at regional and other South East airports to below today’s levels - or better and more acceptable - make optimum use of existing airport capacity.
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Don’t muddle energy efficiency or fuel efficiency with overall cuts in CO2 emissions
Naomi Klein has written a new book, called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Professor Kevin Anderson has written about one of the key issues of how big business in dealing with carbon emissions, and the need to understand the difference between society (or business) actually cutting carbon emissions, or just cutting them per unit of output. This is a vital distinction, but one often lost in the fog of marketing and publicity. If an organisation manages to cut its carbon emissions by, say 10% while producing the same amount of product, that is great. But if it increases production by, say, 20%, the net impact is an increase in emissions. This is very much the case with the much hoped for carbon efficiencies by the aviation industry. Globally through IATA hopes for "An average improvement in fuel efficiency of 1.5% per year to 2020" (how it is measured is not defined). But the industry wants to expand by at least 5% per year. So regardless of the gains in fuel efficiency, the net effect is more carbon emitted. The aviation industry wants "carbon neutral" growth after 2020, meaning no NET increase in carbon emissions, by trading carbon permits with sectors than are genuinely cutting carbon overall.
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Airlines in the US have been flying slower to cut fuel bills
Higher oil prices have made US airlines work to control costs. Between 2002 and 2012, the price of jet fuel quadrupled and fuel bills rose from 15% to more than 40% of the operating costs of US airlines, and their single largest operating expense. Airlines have made many efficiencies to cut fuel consumption, including now flying more slowly. Most of the fuel economies which have been implemented in the last decade will not be undone, even if oil prices were to fall (partly due to the possible future costs of CO2 emissions). There is an optimal cruising speed for each aircraft based on altitude. Flying faster increases the amount of fuel burnt. Historically, commercial aircraft have flown on average about 8% faster than their optimal cruising speed. Getting the aircraft to its destination quicker to pick up another load of passengers and minimise crew cost was worth the extra fuel expense. There is a trade-off between fuel consumption and time. But between 2004 and 2011, the average ground speed of seven major US airlines fell by 1.1%. More than anything else, however, airlines have focused on reducing excess weight.
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George Osborne’s speech at conference omits climate, and says Tories will “decide where to put a runway”
Chancellor George Osborne has today again underlined his commitment to delivering a shale gas revolution in the UK, in a conference speech that ignored climate change threats. Osborne told the Conservative Party conference that the country needed to fast-track infrastructure decisions if it was to deliver on his vision of becoming the most prosperous and creative nation in the industrialised world. Some verbatim quotes: "We will build the high speed rail, decide where to put a runway and support the next generation with starter homes in a permanent Help to Buy." And " Let’s face it, even today this country has spent forty years failing to take a decision about building a new runway in the South East of England." While making the case for investment in new high and low carbon infrastructure the speech contained no mention of climate change, despite David Cameron last week telling the UN that he regards it as "one of the most serious threats facing our world". New Environment Secretary Liz Truss could only manage, on climate, to say this:" we’re now leading international efforts to tackle climate change."
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New paper on future UK aviation shows how fiscal measures will be needed to limit CO2 emissions
In a recent article in "World Transport Policy and Practice", 4 authors (Harry William Vallack, Gary Haq, John Whitelegg and Howard Cambridge) write on the prospects of UK transport being zero carbon by 2050 - or how far it will fall short of this target. Compared to the carbon emissions target that the Committee on Climate Change recommends, of 37.5 MtCO2 per year, by 2050, the paper estimates UK aviation carbon emissions as considerably higher, unless a range of measures are taken to ensure they do not grow. In their "Maximum Impact (MI) scenario, in which UK aviation emissions might possibly be prevented from rising, some 27% of the cut would need to be from fiscal measures (ie. tax and pricing); some 14% of the cut could come from aircraft technology (with perhaps a small amount of biofuel); 13% cut in the CO2 emissions might be from better air traffic control; and 10% could come from constrained demand (ie. not building runways on a predict-and-provide basis). Even with all the Maximum Impact measures, UK aviation emissions could only - at the most optimistic - be reduced by 56% of their "business as usual" level, by 2050. UK surface transport has to be zero carbon, to enable growth in aviation and shipping.
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Airport Operators Association hopes small cuts in CO2 emissions by airport buildings etc will permit a new runway
The AOA have produced a report, the purpose of which is to persuade government etc that aviation is a responsible industry and a new runway should be allowed for the south east. They make various claims, which need to be analysed with some care. Realising that aircraft noise, and the industry's CO2 emissions are key to any decision to allow a new runway, they say airports are reducing the CO2 emissions of their own operations. Airports tend to be huge structures, inherently poorly designed for optimum energy use. However, AOA says that the largest 18 airports have cut their CO2 by "almost 3% in two years" 2010 - 2012 while their number of passengers rose by about 5.4%. Taking into account the 8 airports for which there is data of aircraft emissions below 2,000 feet, the AOA say the CO2 emissions were down 1.9% with a 2.4% rise in flights. This all sounds great, but completely ignores the issue of the carbon emitted by the flights themselves - which is a far larger amount. Aviation carbon emissions - and controls on them - are based on emissions from aircraft, not emissions from airports. So the AOA's efforts, though welcome, are somewhat peripheral to the main issue. Airport carbon savings should not be a justification for building a new runway, enabling a large number of extra annual aircraft kilometres.
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Lib Dem Pre-Manifesto 2014 – definite opposition to any new south east runway, taking account of climate impact
The Liberal Democrats have launched their Pre-Manifesto 2014, and it contains an emphatic statement against any new runway at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted - and no estuary airport. Their policy: "Ensure our airport infrastructure meets the needs of a modern and open economy, without allowing emissions from aviation to undermine our goal of a zero-carbon Britain by 2050. We will carefully consider the conclusions of the Davies Review into runway capacity and develop a strategic airports policy for the whole of the UK in the light of those recommendations and advice from the Committee on Climate Change. We remain opposed to any expansion of Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick and any new airport in the Thames Estuary, because of local issues of air and noise pollution. We will ensure no net increase in runways across the UK as a whole by prohibiting the opening of any new runways unless others are closed elsewhere." It is thought that this position will not be popular with big business, which wants expanded airport, and ever increasing aviation - with little consideration for the climate impacts.
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Carbon constraints relating to a new runway have been lost amongst the debate, not on “if” but only on “where”
In a blog, the Carbon Brief has a look at the climate and environmental impacts of the expansion plans by London's airports. Leaving aside the noise and other impacts, and looking here just at carbon, it is clear that there is an issue. While UK aviation makes up some 6% of just CO2 emissions, under the current system by which aviation is not required to cut its emissions by 2050, UK aviation will then make up about 25% of UK carbon emitted. The UK is required to cut its overall carbon emissions by 80% of their 1990 level, by 2050. Aviation just needs to keep its emissions to 37.5 megatonnes - which was about the level in 2005. As long as the rest of the economy decarbonises very intensively, aviation could keep its very generous allocation. But that means not going above 37.5 Mt. A report in July, by AEF, showed that it would be likely that an additional new runway would contribute some 8.2Mt of CO2 per year, making meeting the 37.5 Mt target "effectively impossible". It would require air travel at regional airports to be reduced, which apart from contradicting regional development policies would be"politically very difficult to implement and have significant economic consequences."
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Guardian Editorial on UK aviation addiction & need to limit air travel demand by capacity restriction
The Guardian, in an editorial, says Boris is insisting his estuary airport scheme is “not dead” at all, because in the end it will not be for the Airports Commission to decide, but the next government. In which, of course, he intends to play a major part . The Guardian remembers that the main issue is the deeper environmental damage done by the CO2 belched out by jet engines, which regrettably seems to have been dropped from the political equation. While the UK should be discussing the sort of economic growth we want, instead policy appears to boil down to “planning for rising demand” so anyone who wants to fly can. And cheaply. Allowing airport expansion in the south east will require restrictions on the growth of northern airports, which does not fit with regional policy, or by making reductions of unrealistic depth in other economic sectors. And of course, most air travel is holidaying. "The economics do not dictate that fast projected growth in air travel must be taken as a given: it ought to be possible to manage demand instead. .... there is no easy way to [manage demand] without keeping a lid on capacity. Instead, however, Westminster indulges passengers and airlines with the old lie: the sky’s the limit."