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MPs attack government aviation plans
15 March 2004
Plans to allow a massive expansion in air travel will make it impossible for the Government to meet its climate change targets, a committee of MPs warned today [1].
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee's aviation report concluded that:
"If aviation emissions increase on the scale predicted by the DfT, the UK's 60% carbon emission reduction target which the Government set last year will become meaningless and unachievable. The most we could hope to attain would be about 35%."
The EAC also accused the Government of "actively promoting growth on the scale envisaged, and indeed the urgency with which it is requiring airport operators to implement expansion plans bears this out."The report echoes Friends of the Earth's own research which showed that if aviation grew as predicted, climate change targets would be dealt a "hammer blow" [2].
Last month Tony Blair told MPs that he thought climate change was the biggest long term threat the planet faces: "Looking very long term… I think it is the key issue that faces us" [3].
Friends of the Earth is calling on Gordon Brown to start to tackle the impacts caused by the aviation industry in Wednesday's Budget. The environmental campaign group is calling on the Chancellor to increase Air Passenger Duty (APD) by £5 on all air tickets [4].
Friends of the Earth's Aviation Campaigner, Richard Dyer, said:
"This damming report clearly highlights the catastrophic implications of the Government's `predict and provide aviation' policy. Allowing aviation to grow on the scale proposed will make it impossible for the Government to meet its promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tony Blair says that climate change is the key long term issue that faces us. But, unless the Government uses this week's Budget to start to tackle the problem by increasing Air Passenger Duty, these concerns will be little more than hot air."
Notes
1. www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/ ¬
environmental_audit_committee.cfm
2. www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/20021129120015.html
3. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmliaisn/uc310-i/uc31002.htm
See question 87
4. www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/ ¬
budget_increase_in_air_pas_12032004.html
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Last modified: Jul 2008
