Action Briefing Oct 2004 - Nov 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Sign the Pledge: stop airport expansion!

Leading transport and environmental organisations are calling on the public to make a pledge of resistance to airport expansion as part of a new campaign launched on Friday 8th October.

The Airport Pledge is a response to the Government’s Air Transport White Paper launched last December. The White Paper forecast a near-trebling of passengers using UK airports over the next 30 years and backed the construction of new runways at Stansted, Heathrow or Gatwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh, as well as major expansion at most of the UK’s other airports.

Tens of thousands of copies of the pledge will be distributed to groups and individuals across the country. People will be invited to sign up, pledging themselves to take personal action to resist airport expansion and to prevent companies from supporting and funding it. What action people take is their personal choice but the pledge helps them with updates and ideas of what they can do.

The pledge is managed by a coalition of groups including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, People & Planet, and Transport 2000, together with local protest groups HACAN ClearSkies (Heathrow) and Swansea-based Swansea Airport No Expansion (SANE). The pledge is hosted by the climate change campaign network, Rising Tide. At the time of writing (17th Oct 2004), nearly 400 people have signed the pledge on-line.

Challenge
Environmental groups are challenging the Prime Minister to back up his recent speech on climate change with tough action to cut global greenhouse gas emissions. Aviation is the fastest-growing contributor to global warming. Not only do planes use a lot of (tax-free) fuel, but the altitude at which they fly triples their climate changing impact. The Government’s own advisors, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the Environmental Audit Committee, and the Sustainable Development Commission, are all saying that the ‘go for growth’ airport policy is dangerous and destructive but the Government will not listen.

The Airport Pledge is a petition with a difference: it contains the real threat that the people who sign it will be active and determined. The government is nervous of this kind of large scale opposition. The companies that fund and build the expansion are wary of this kind of risk to their investments. If we get enough people to join the pledge we can stop the airport expansion and force the government to adopt a transport policy which respects people and the environment.

James Botham

Take Action
Sign the Airport Pledge either on-line at the website www.airportpledge.org.uk or obtain a paper copy from The Airport Pledge, 16B Cherwell Street, Oxford, OX4 1BG, Tel: 01865 241097, email: info@airportpledge.org.uk. You can work out the real impact of any flight at www.chooseclimate.org