Action Briefing Jun 2005 - Jul 2005
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Making the Connection: Air Transport and Climate Change

In run up to May's general election, Birmingham Friends of the Earth wanted to find out how, if elected, the main prospective parliamentary candidates for Birmingham and Solihull intended to match their parties' promises to reduce the UK's contribution to climate change with real action, with particular emphasis on the climate change impacts of air transport.

Labour's aviation policy has been described by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee in June 2004 as "the most glaring example of the failure of Government to put sustainable development at the heart of policy making". The 2003 Air Transport White Paper recommended a raft of airport expansion across the country, including four new runways, to accommodate the forecast near-trebling of air travel over the next 25 years. With Birmingham International Airport's draft Master Plan expected later this summer, and both a second runway and runway extension on the cards, we were keen to know how the candidates proposed to deal with the airport's planned expansion in the light of aviation's growing contribution to climate change.

New research by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research suggests that future growth in air transport could wipe out all the emissions savings made by other sectors of the economy, making it virtually impossible for the UK to meet its emissions reduction targets. International aviation was not included in the Government's 2003 commitment to a 60 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions on 1990 levels by 2050, as no-one has yet been able to agree on how to allocate responsibility for aviation's emissions to nation states.

Selly Oak stalwart Lynne Jones knows the score, at least according to her submission to the Climate Change Review in February 2005, to which she referred us: "Road traffic and aviation are the fastest growing sources of climate change gasses . . .There are presented no policy measures specifically to encourage the public to cut their use of cars and aviation and to promote instead the use of rail and other public transport or cycling and walking." Lynne's colleagues in the remaining eight Labour-controlled constituencies were less forthcoming.

Weak spot
Perhaps sensing a weak spot in Labour's armour, Shadow Transport Secretary Tim Yeo told The Guardian (21st March), "If I was in office on May 6th, I would want to straight away talk to my colleagues in Europe about how we could make progress towards a fuel tax. Aviation has to take account of its environmental impact to a greater extent than it has done in the past." Before we could get too excited, though, Conservative Central Office were claiming that Mr Yeo had been misquoted.

Caroline Spelman, who as MP for Meriden has consistently opposed Birmingham Airport's second runway , promised that a Conservative government would deliver "the most serious climate change programme ever seen in this country", to include "support for a wide range of renewable energy sources including offshore wind, biofuels, solar, wave and tidal", "a zero emissions road map for all new buildings", a phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and "an effective system of carbon trading through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, moving as fast as possible to a tougher and fairer allocation of carbon allowances, and then to its extension around the world."

Alternative
"Predict and provide doesn't work on our road network, it won't work on aviation", said Craig Drury, Liberal Democrat candidate for Sutton Coldfield. "We should be more heavily promoting rail as an alternative to travel [sic], and local consumption to reduce the desire to travel." Roger Harmer, standing for the Lib Dems in Hall Green, told us, "I believe that a system of taxation should be developed that ensures each flight pays an amount of taxation equivalent to the environmental damage caused . . . Once this is done, I think we should leave the market to decide the precise level of air travel." But how could the Lib Dems' opposition to unsustainable aviation growth be taken seriously when party leader Charles Kennedy has conducted his last two election campaign tours by plane, we wanted to know? "Charles Kennedy's early election tour by air fitted in with [the party's] principles as the party voluntarily paid a contribution to make the tour carbon neutral", Roger assured us.

The Lib Dems' 'Manifesto for the Environment' says, "We want to cut emissions from aviation by rejecting Labour's flawed plans for airport expansion." The Party will "ensure that Britain achieves its own target well before the deadline, and establishes a new target of a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010, setting an example to the world." However, the Green Party attack the Lib Dems' environmental "pretensions" in their report 'Too Yellow to be Green' (on-line at www.greenparty.org.uk). According to the Greens, "Although the Liberal Democrats have admitted that air travel is an unsustainable form of transport with severe local impacts, they have supported airport expansions, voted against tough noise limitation laws, and argued that air travel should be made 'more affordable' (presumably to encourage people to fly)."

Options
The European Commission is studying three options for dealing with aviation emissions: emissions trading, a fuel tax or extra ticket charges. Of the three options emissions trading is the most likely to be proposed and approved, according to EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, but the airlines are unlikely to join the system by 2012, when the first time period covered by the Kyoto Protocol ends.

The EU's emissions trading system, launched in January, sets limits on the amount of carbon dioxide energy-intensive installations like power plants can emit and allows them to buy or sell allowances that give them the right to release greenhouse gases. Emissions trading would let the aviation sector buy emissions reductions at a low price from other sectors. European airports and some major airlines, including British Airways, favour a trading system, claiming it would be more beneficial to the environment than a tax. However, it would be a "grave error" to rely solely on emissions trading to tackle the climate change impact of aviation, according to the European Transport and Energy Forum, an advisory body set up by the European Commission's Transport and Energy directorates in 2001: "It is rather doubtful that, in the short-term, inclusion in the scheme would have much, if any, impact on aviation's emissions", the Forum reports.

As AirportWatch have argued, an emissions charge or levy related to the distance flown and the amount of pollution caused would be far more effective than trading, and preferable to a fuel tax, as it would tax emissions and not just fuel consumption. A European Environmental Charge on aircraft emissions, with the option for member states to increase the charge to cover noise and other local problems or put it towards general taxation, is certainly feasible, and as it would not infringe the anachronistic international agreements which enshrine aviation's tax exemptions, even hard-headed political realists could comfortably support it.

James Botham