Report Confirms Need for Tough Action on Aviation
Wed., September 09, 2009. 11:56.
Today's report on aviation from the UK Government's Climate Change Committee must be taken seriously if Scottish or UK Ministers are to have any chance of meeting carbon emissions targets, Greens argue. (1) The report confirms that even holding aviation pollution to 2005 levels will require reductions in emissions of 90% in other parts of the UK economy by 2050, not 80% as Ministers had proposed.
Urgent change is needed across transport policy if Ministers are to meet their emissions targets, yet both Governments remain committed to a business as usual approach. This report follows the publication by the Scottish Government of their long-awaited Carbon Account for Transport, (2) a document which was billed as setting out the real environmental consequences of Scottish Ministers' transport policy, but which Greens believe has been heavily spun against public transport and in favour of the motoring lobby.
Patrick Harvie MSP said:
"This landmark report from the UK Committee will force Ministers to decide - do they want to limit climate change, or will they instead press on with airport expansion? The time for pretending they can do both is now over forever. They must also stop pretending that expanding airport capacity won't increase pollution. The third runway at Heathrow may get all the publicity, but Scottish Ministers are also guilty here too, with plans to approve extra flights at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Prestwick, Aberdeen and elsewhere across Scotland. Governments of all parties are terrified to take on the aviation industry, but this is a crucial test of their commitment to tackling climate change, and one they seem determined to fail.
"Across the whole of transport policy the other parties remain incapable of facing the real issues. Scottish Ministers recently published their own long overdue carbon account for transport, a depressing, inconsistent and pessimistic document. It should be a clear way to measure the climate consequences of all their transport decisions, but it's been heavily spun, based on old information and deliberately designed to be virtually useless. The whole document assumes substantial increases in road traffic, and then skews the case in favour of road schemes.
"For instance, the additional Forth Bridge is listed as saving CO2, but only because they compare it to sending all the traffic via the Kincardine Bridge: cheap ways to fix the existing bridge aren't even on their agenda. The reality, conceded by the Scottish Government just months ago, is that any additional bridge across the Forth will result in a substantial increase in transport emissions.
"Conversely, the trams are damned in this paper because Ministers have chosen to assume major developments along the route will entice people to drive more. However, they ignore the effects of car journeys to out-of-town shopping centres, journeys which they themselves suggest would be likely to grow without the trams.
"A thread runs through this carbon account: if it's a road project then Ministers will want their photo-op in hard hats, and the facts are twisted to make it look sustainable. If it's a public transport scheme they campaigned against in opposition, the fiddle goes the other way.
"It's no surprise that Ministers continue to listen to the road and aviation lobbies and ignore both the green movement and their own scientific advisors. Some say the SNP don't understand either their carbon reduction targets or what's needed to achieve them. The truth is worse, I fear: they have no real interest in climate change, because it doesn't appear to relate directly to independence."
Notes
1. For the Climate Change Committee's release, see: http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/ReducingglobalaviationemissionsPR09.09.09.pdf
Their letter to UK Ministers is here: http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/CCCAviationLetterSoS%2009.09.09.pdf
2. The Carbon Account for Transport is here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/08/27143705/0
Contact the Scottish Greens' press team on 07909 933 074.