Airline emissions need control

Aviation must not be dropped from UK carbon target say campaigners

AirportWatch  has condemned plans to exclude aviation and shipping from the UK’s carbon budgets, a move they claim would seriously damage the country’s targets to cut climate change emissions.

The campaigning group, a national umbrella organisation opposing unsustainable airport expansion, said they would actively oppose any suggestion from the Department for Transport and the Treasury for removal of aviation and shipping from the UK’s fifth carbon budget, due for consideration in 2015.

The statement came following a parliament select committee on energy and climate change meeting this week at which the DfT argued that the UK could save money in future if it were to drop aviation and shipping emissions from its 2050 target. The DfT did however note that this would sacrifice the environmental benefit of including them. AW said they understood the DfT is liaising with the Treasury to highlight the potential future cost savings of exempting aviation and shipping from the UK’s Climate Act.  

However, the Committee for Climate Change Chief Executive, David Kennedy, stressed at the meeting that excluding these important sectors (likely to account for around 25% of the UK’s total emissions by 2050) would mean the UK would be very likely to miss our climate objective of limiting the risk of global warming exceeding 2 degrees. He argued that there was now no good reason for excluding aviation and shipping from future carbon budgets. Aviation and shipping are already taken account of in CCC projections to 2050, he said, meaning there would be no extra cost to the UK economy of formally including them.

The CCC has set the UK target of 80% carbon cuts by 2050, as part of the UK’s international responsibilities towards cutting 50% of global carbon emissions by 2050.

AirportWatch Communications Director Susan Pearson said: "It has never been more important to fight climate change. The science shows that even the global 50% cut by 2050 may not be enough, and our 80% cut may not be enough. The need for carbon reduction is as urgent as ever – why would the UK consider watering down our targets? There is no room for badly thought out exclusions."

"We urge anyone who is concerned about aviation’s contribution to the UK’s climate change burden to respond to that consultation. Information on how to respond can be found on our website at: http://www.airportwatch.org.uk

Ms Pearson also commented that the Government cannot rely solely on either ‘cleaner’ technology or the EU Emissions Trading System to guarantee sufficient reductions in emissions.

Valere Tjolle
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