Plans to build new runway ‘not rooted in real world’ say leading green groups
• Reports by the RSPB, WWF and Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) challenge airport expansion assumptions
• Growth at regional airports likely to be constrained
• Reports to be launched in House of Commons at 3pm, Tuesday 15 July, Committee Room 10
Leading environmental organisations are challenging the Airport Commission’s claim that it is possible to build a new runway and still meet the Government’s climate change targets.
Two new reports released today by the RSPB, WWF and Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) say plans to expand airport capacity are ‘based on a wing and a prayer’ and ‘not rooted in the real world’.
They also argue that building a new runway in the South East would worsen the North/South divide as growth at the regional airports would need to be constrained in order to ensure CO2 emissions from aviation fall to their 2005 levels by 2050.
If aviation emissions were allowed to soar it would impose costs on the rest of the economy rising to between £1 billion and £8.4 billion per year or more by 2050 as non-aviation sectors would need to make even deeper emissions cuts.
Aviation, climate change and sharing the load, from the RSPB, says that the Commission’s recommendation that we can have one new runway and still be compliant with the UK 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.
The second report, Implications of South East expansion for regional airports from the Aviation Environment Federation, commissioned by WWF-UK, shows it is impossible to build an additional runway in the South East and keep aviation emissions consistent with meeting UK climate targets, without cutting airport capacity elsewhere.
In practice, this could mean that many regional airports would need either to be closed or limited to operating fewer flights than today’s levels. This would conflict with both government and commercial forecasts, which anticipate at least 200% growth by 2050, and also exacerbate the North/South divide.
RSPB’s economist Adam Dutton and 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, the deputy director of the Aviation Environment Federation who wrote their report, 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.”
