The Government has been slammed by Friends of the Earth for delaying a decision on curbing future UK aviation emissions.
The
Department for Transport (DfT) issued a response yesterday to the 2009
Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) report on reducing UK
CO2 emissions from
aviation by 2050, In it, it said more work had to be done to assess the cost effectiveness of measures identified by the CCC for reducing emissions from flying and the
policies that might achieve them. The DfT said it was now seeking "wider scrutiny" on its scoping document for 'Developing a Sustainable Framework for UK
Aviation’, which it published in March.
The previous Government had pledged to cut future emissions from flying by 2050 and Friends of the Earth described the DfT’s decision to delay action as "astonishing" and contrary to the Coalition’s pledge to be the "greenest Government ever".
"Allowing aviation emissions to soar will make it much harder for the UK to play its part in tackling climate change, and could mean we'll need to make even bigger energy savings in our homes and businesses," Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins, said."Ministers must stop dithering, endorse the 2050 target and publish a new aviation policy, which rules out all further airport expansion."
Airport expansionBut in its report the DfT said the Coalition Government’s decision to reverse Labour’s plan for a third runway at Heathrow, alongside other evidence, provided a new context in which to consider adopting the 2050 aviation CO2 target.
Aviation accounts for around one to two per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and around six per cent of the UK’s GHG emissions. With the expansion of aviation, however, they are expected to grow substantially over the next decades if left unchecked.
"The Coalition Government believes that supporting sustainable economic growth is essential to delivering our goal of tackling the deficit while protecting the environment. I have made promoting this approach for aviation one of my department’s five priorities, with a specific objective to adopt a Sustainable Framework for UK Aviation by March 2013," Transport Secretary John Hammond writes in the foreword to the DfT report.
Revised UK aviation forecasts
As part of its response to the CCC, the DfT has published revised UK aviation forecasts and has presented an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a potential aviation policies to cut carbon emissions.
The DfT said the work will contribute towards developing its Sustainable Framework for UK Aviation and inform "decisions on how best to reduce carbon emissions across the wider economy including, for example, where to allocate bio-energy supply".
Biofuels
In June 2011 the European aviation industry announced plans to fuel its planes with two million tonnes of biofuels by 2020.
But Friends of the Earth said reducing aviation emissions was the only sustainable answer to dealing with rising aviation.
"Relying on biofuels is not the answer – producing them on the scale required would have a devastating impact on the planet," said Andy Atkins.
The DfT said it was accepting responses to its scoping document up until October 20 2011. The CCC will deliver a further report on aviation emissions by March 2012.
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