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Plane politics
As environmental awareness continues to rise, air travel risks becoming a leading bogeyman in the eyes of the public. Cars may have a more damaging net effect, but holiday flights – less essential to everyday lives and more easily seen as frivolous – could become a more potent symbol of the conflict between society’s habits and their impact on the environment.
And as these ideas begin to take hold in the national consciousness, they inevitably move further into mainstream politics. The government wants to see aviation included in the EU emissions trading scheme by 2008, an ambition Conservative leader David Cameron also expressed on his trip to Norway earlier this year.
The Liberal Democrats have drawn up rough proposals for taxing flights alongside more punitive costs for drivers of ‘gas-guzzlers’.
There is good reason for politicians to take note, beyond wanting to hit a popular touchstone. According to the air transport white paper, aviation could account for about a quarter of the UK’s total contribution to global warming by 2030. Even assuming that fuel-efficiency targets are met, aircraft carbon dioxide emissions are predicted to increase from 8.8 million tonnes in 2000 to 18 million tonnes by 2030.
The aviation industry will in future have to give a greater account of itself than before, and be prepared to answer harder questions. In its defence, it will be able to give some hard answers.
According to the Department for Transport, the industry supports 200,000 British jobs, and accounts for one third of the nation’s exports. The white paper, parts of which have become the Civil Aviation Bill, acknowledged the positive changes the explosion in air travel has wrought on the country.
Falling fares have opened up the possibility of foreign travel for many people, and air connections have boosted national and regional prosperity. Its role supporting tourism is difficult to question, helping more than 30 million people who visited the UK from overseas in the last 12 months.
The emergence of low-cost airlines has opened up connections it would be painful to lose, and schemes like the EU’s route-development fund have helped put regions on the map that would look unkindly on seeing routes withdrawn.
The government expects passenger numbers to more than double, from 200 million in 2003 to 470 million in 2030. But the positive economic impact of that level of growth will be matched by growing dissatisfaction with its by-products – noise, extra terminals and runways, and carbon.
The Civil Aviation Bill will try to tackle aircraft noise and give airports powers to charge for local emissions. And the introduction of emissions trading, if it comes about, will have a more substantial impact.
But it is clear that in what could become an increasingly febrile atmosphere, the aviation industry has to manage its growth with care. The industry has made it clear it wants to set measurable goals to balance the growth of the industry with the demands of the environment and its social responsibilities.
These goals – improving fuel-efficiency and reducing emissions, an active involvement in plans for emissions trading, and a focus on improving the lives of those around airports – are not solutions in themselves. But they are evidence that aviation is not resisting change for short-term gain.
The challenge is to prove that sustainable aviation is not a sop to avoid tougher regulation, but the active pursuit of consensus and a practical way ahead.
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