General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
Letter from academics on Jet Zero’s failure to reduce aviation CO2 by avoiding air travel demand management
Sir, As academics and researchers with expertise in climate science, meteorology, transport, nutrition and other fields, we are writing in response to Jet Zero, the government’s proposed strategy to decarbonise flying. Jet Zero would allow UK aviation emissions to increase up to 2030 from 2019 levels. This is counter to very clear advice from the UK Climate Change Committee to the government: measures to limit demand for flying should form an integral part of meeting our emissions reduction targets, alongside exploring the longer term technological innovations set out in Jet Zero. The report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes it starkly clear that it is vital to meet our net zero targets. As António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said recently: “There is no time for delay and no room for excuses.” The management of aviation demand must be sufficiently responsive so as to keep emissions reduction targets firmly within sight through the inevitable successes and failures of new technology.
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Government will not review the Airports National Policy Statement, on any of the challenge grounds
The Government had the option of reviewing the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS) after the legal challenges, which took place during 2019 and 2020. One key issue of the challenges was the impact on the UK's climate targets of allowing Heathrow to increase its carbon emissions by up to 50%. Now the DfT has decided it will not review the ANPS, so it continues to be the underlying policy through which Heathrow could expand. The airport still has to go through the Development Consent Order (DCO) process, to get approval for a 3rd runway. Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary of State, says that even though the UK now has a target of 78% cuts in CO2 emissions by 2035 and international aviation should be included in that target (compared to 1990 levels) and "considers that it is not possible to conclude properly that any of the policy set out in the ANPS would have been materially different had these circumstances been anticipated at the time of designation [June 2018]." The overall impact of Heathrow expansion, combined with expansion of other airports, will be considered by the Planning Inspectorate at the DCO stage. It appears an opportunity to reduce UK aviation CO2 emissions has been missed, and government will do as little as possible on the issue.
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Gatwick’s Big Enough – a 2nd runway at Gatwick would be ‘disaster for the climate’
Protesters, organised through the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), gathered near the airport, chanting 'Gatwick is big enough', to express their opposition to the airport's plans to convert its standby runway into a runway for routine flights. Campaigners, residents and councillors held a peaceful demonstration next to a noise monitor in Charlwood, to coincide with the midnight launch of Gatwick's public consultation into its proposed expansion. Operating as a 2-runway airport would see Gatwick increase its annual passenger capacity from 62 million to 75m by 2038 - making it almost as large as Heathrow today. GACC chairman, Peter Barclay said the expansion of the airport would have negative impacts for people over a wide area - in terms of noise and air pollution, more night noise and sleep deprivation, and impacts on local infrastructure. All that affects people's quality of life. While humanity urgently needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, if we are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, it makes no sense d to allow Gatwick to expand, adding another 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
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After two and a half years, Government closes down the ICCAN
The Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise (ICCAN) was finally set up by the government in March 2019, with the aim of looking into how the extra noise from airport expansion would affect those overflown, and the impacts of changes to flight paths. Its aim was not to reduce the amount of aircraft noise suffered, but to find out more about it, consult etc. Its creation had been a recommendation of the Airports Commission in June 2015, to make Heathrow expansion seem less unpalatable. Now Robert Courts, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Transport, has announced that it is to be wound up at the end of September. Back in June 2015 ICCAN had said it would take them two years to: “Review existing enforcement mechanisms and consider whether enforcement powers are necessary”. It had been stated in 2019 that "ICCAN will be reviewed in two years’ time and a decision will be made about its future direction as an organisation, including whether to give it increased powers. In the meantime, ICCAN’s role is threefold: to listen, to evaluate and to advise." The government now says its role will mainly be taken on by the CAA, and part by the DfT. That will not bring reassurance to those suffering from aircraft noise problems.
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Gatwick public consultation begins on plans to convert standby runway to full use as 2nd runway
Gatwick airport has started a public consultation on its plans to bring its standby runway, just north of the main runway, into routine use for departing aircraft - alongside the main runway. It means having to reposition the centre line of the standby runway, moving it 12 metres north. That then just meets international runway safety standards. The consultation ends on 1st December 2021. Due to the size of the proposal, increasing the annual number of passengers by over 10 million, it is classed as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project. Therefore Gatwick will next have to apply for a Development Consent Order (DCO) to build and operate the altered runway. This consultation is not the DCO application itself. Gatwick hopes to get consent to start the first stages of the runway process by 2023, starting actual building work in 2024, with the runway finished by 2029. The work is expected currently to cost £500 million - there are extravagant claims about numbers of new jobs and local economic benefit. This growth is in addition to more growth by increased use of the main runway, but that does not need a DCO application. Gatwick's annual CO2 emissions could rise by a million tonnes.
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BEIS sets new much higher prices for the valuation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in policy appraisal
The government (BEIS) sets the price it uses for the valuation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in policy appraisal. This has been updated in September following a cross-government review during 2020 and 2021. Greenhouse gas emissions values (“carbon values”) are used across government for valuing impacts on emissions resulting from policy interventions. They represent a monetary value that society places on one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (£/tCO2e). They differ from carbon prices, which represent the observed price of carbon in a relevant market (such as the UK Emissions Trading Scheme). To reach net zero in 2050 and meet UK 5-yearly carbon budgets, there needs to be a realistic value on GHG, in order to reduce emissions. The price has now been set, for 2021, at £245 per tonne (central value) rising to £378 per tonne by 2050. Even that may be too low. The prices now are around £70. This will have significant implications for the forecast economic costs/benefits of future infrastructure, such as airport expansion projects. The claimed economic benefits will be lower, with the realistic carbon prices, than the current low levels. Airport expansion plans will need to be reassessed.
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Gatwick 2nd runway plans must – and will – be opposed and rejected
Local community group, the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign (GACC), say the proposed expansion of Gatwick, which it confirmed today, is unwelcome, unnecessary; if approved, it would have devastating consequences for the environment, local communities, and people living under flight paths, even many miles away. GACC - with local community groups - is relaunching its ‘Gatwick’s Big Enough’ campaign to fight the proposals. The plan to grow the airport's capacity by between 40% and over 60% over the next 15 years involves use of new technology on the main runway, and re-aligning and widening the existing emergency (or standby) runway to form a 2nd runway. This will mean more noise, more local rail and road congestion, more air pollution and more carbon emissions. If it gets its way, Gatwick would be able to grow from 45 million passengers and 280,000 flights in 2018, to 74 million passengers and 390,000 flights over the next 15 years, nearly the size Heathrow is now. GACC says: "This proposal is unnecessary and ill conceived. It must and will be opposed and rejected.“
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Gatwick announces plans to bring its standby runway into routine use
Gatwick airport has announced that it will start a 12 week consultation, from the 9th September to the 1st December, on its plans to modify and alter the current standby runway, for use as another runway. This consultation comes before Gatwick submits an application to the Planning Inspectorate for a Development Consent Order (DCO) for the expansion. This is necessary because, under the Planning Act ? 2012, any airport application that will result in more than 10 million more annual passengers, and thus be considered to be a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, has to go through the DCO process, rather than the conventional planning application to the local authority. Details of the consultation and its contents will be published on 9th September, but it is thought that materials will be entirely - or almost entirely - online. This application for a huge increase in annual air passengers, and thus inevitably an increase in carbon emissions, comes before the UK hosts the COP26 climate talks, and the IPCC has warned about just how serious the climate change situation is - including the urgency of the need to cut carbon emissions.
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Airbus and Boeing will not be fuelling planes with hydrogen for perhaps 15 – 20 years
Airbus has said that most airliners will rely on traditional jet engines until at least 2050, burning conventional fossil jet fuel. Airbus says it plans to develop the world's first "zero-emission" commercial aircraft by 2035, but not whether the technology will be ready for the replacement for the medium-haul A320, due to be produced in the 2030s. It is working on several concepts for a novel plane. Until there is ample "green" hydrogen (no CO2 emitted in its production) any plane burning "blue" (or other types) hydrogen is not zero carbon. Airbus said that it if can produce planes that burn hydrogen, they will be regional and shorter-range aircraft - from 2035. It will be harder for long haul aircraft. The technology of using hydrogen to fuel planes is still on the drawing board. The aviation industry is wanting public money from governments, to develop hydrogen or electric planes, or low carbon liquid fuels. If the industry had to pay all the costs themselves, the price of flights would go up, and thus demand would go down. Not a profitable prospect for airlines. Boeing has also said that it will not be using hydrogen as fuel on a significant scale before 2050.
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Unless hydrogen is “green” hydrogen, or all CO2 produced is genuinely stored for ever, it is not a low carbon fuel
The DfT is pushing the idea of planes fuelled partly by hydrogen, as part of its "Jet Zero" strategy - hoping to find ways in which people can continue to fly, without huge carbon emissions that make reaching the UK target of net zero impossible. However, the Government's "Jet Zero Council" said, at the end of June, that government was launching "the first round of £3 million Zero Emission Flight Infrastructure (ZEFI) competition, supporting development of infrastructure required to aid electric and hydrogen aircraft such as charge points for planes." Hydrogen can be produced in various ways, most using a fossil fuel and producing CO2 in the process. The hydrogen could only be a "low carbon" fuel if all this CO2 is captured and stored, for ever - not just reused (which is what usually happens at present.) Now a study by academics at Cornell and Stanford universities in the US, warned that blue hydrogen (produced by ‘steam reforming’, needing carbon capture and storage for the CO2 created) could be up to 20% worse for the climate than fossil gas owing to the emissions that escape during its production, multiplied by the amount of gas required to make the equivalent amount of energy from hydrogen.