A
new report, Implications of South East expansion for regional airports from the Aviation Environment Federation, commissioned by
WWF-UK, will be launched in parliament this week.
It concludes that many regional airports would need either to be closed or limited to operating fewer flights than today’s levels in order to allow both expansion in or near London and the UK to meet its targets.
This would conflict with both government and commercial forecasts, which anticipate at least 200% growth by 2050, and also exacerbate the North/South divide.
If aviation emissions were allowed to soar it would impose costs on the rest of the economy rising to between £1bn and £8.4bn per year or more by 2050 as non-aviation sectors would need to make even deeper emissions cuts.
The RSPB said its report,
Aviation, climate change and sharing the load
, shows that suggestions the UK can have one new runway and still be compliant with the Climate Change Act assumes that aviation emissions will be constrained by regulatory measures.
But the report has found that the regulatory regime is still aspirational - or is so weak as to be ineffective. It argues “We are therefore basing our decision to build a new runway on a world as we would like it to be - rather than as it currently exists.”
The report concludes that, in order to comply with the Climate Change Act, the only options are to manage future demand by increasing the cost of carbon which would see fares soar to unrealistically high levels or constrain capacity at airports by ruling out any new runways.
RSPB’s economist Adam Duttonand author of their report, said: “The rest of the economy will be heavily penalised if emissions from aviation are not constrained. We estimate the cost could rise to as much as £8 billion per year and maybe more. When the rest of society is already being asked to decarbonise by at least 80% this is neither fair nor efficient.”
Cait Hewitt, deputy director of the
Aviation Environment Federation
, said: “The Airports Commission and future governments have a choice to make: either allow aviation expansion in the South East and heavily constrain regional airports or let regional airports grow within the capacity they already have but don’t build any new runways. But climate change limits mean that you can’t do both.”
Jean Leston, head of transport at
WWF-UK
, said: “Thinking that you can build a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick while still keeping to UK climate targets is being over-optimistic and using assumptions that are based on a wing and a prayer, not on the real world. When it comes to airport expansion, climate change isn’t ‘dealt with’ as an issue.”
The Climate Change Act ensures that the UK remains on track to deliver at least an 80% emissions cut by 2050 based on our 1990 levels. The Act, which received such wide and cross-party political support when it was passed in 2008 that only 5 MPs voted against it, legislates that by 2050 total UK emissions may not exceed 160 Million tonnes of CO2, and requires aviation emissions to be taken into account. The Committee on Climate Change, which oversees delivery of the Act, has recommended that aviation should be allowed to take up around 25% of total UK emissions by 2050 (up from around 5% today). But even so, the Committee has said, aviation demand will need to be controlled to prevent it growing to the high levels currently forecast.