Joss Garman and Michelle di Leo disagree
Dear Michelle,
Every day we’re all presented with the overwhelming threat posed by catastrophic, human-induced climate change. It’s increasingly obvious that we urgently need to cut the carbon.
In the UK, a significant proportion of the country’s impact on the climate – 13 per cent – is a result of the aviation industry. In fact, flying is already the fastest-growing cause of climate change. Getting on a plane is the most environmentally damaging thing you can do. So it’s not surprising that scientists should have singled out plans for expansion of the industry as unsustainable.
Dr Brenda Boardman of Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute said: ‘The government has to confront the contradictions in its policies. Unless the rate of flights is curbed, the UK cannot fulfil its commitments on climate change. If government wants to be confident about achieving its targets, it has to undertake demand management.’
Dr Kevin Anderson from the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is also insistent. He said, ‘The government cannot reconcile current aviation growth with its stated position on climate change. Even with the latest more efficient aircraft, the climate-change imperative demands that air-travel growth be severely curtailed.’
Why won’t you listen to rational, scientific argument, Michelle?
Yours, Joss
Dear Joss,
The science of climate change is not disputed.
We differ in the policy response to the science. Sir Nicholas Stern was asked whether the UK’s policy on aviation was compatible with meeting our carbon reduction targets. His answer? Yes
The IPCC predicts that aviation globally will contribute three per cent of carbon emissions by 2050. Scientists disagree about the impact of aviation’s contrails and their contribution to cirrus cloud formation and to radiative forcing (that is, a measure of the importance of a potential climate-change mechanism).
Your assertion that ‘getting on a plane is the most environmentally damaging thing you can do’ is not supported by any scientific reference. Is this because it is not based on science, but on your own value judgment?
Policy responses not underpinned by agreed science will be unbalanced and ineffective. There is no logic in adopting a position and then arguing the science points only in that direction. The Soil Association’s proposal to remove organic status from air¬freighted food rests on just such muddied thinking. Farmers in the developing world rely on air freighting their fresh produce to market. Decimating the livelihoods of the people you wish to protect from climate change cannot be right.
The impact of aviation can be addressed and its economic and social benefits protected. Don’t take my word for that: Sir Nicholas Stern was asked whether the UK’s policy on aviation was compatible with meeting our carbon reduction targets. His answer? Yes.
Yours, Michelle
Dear Michelle,
Your response was typically misleading.
The IPCC produced a range of scenarios to predict aviation’s contribution to climate change by 2050. The results ranged between three per cent and 15 per cent. Furthermore, these predictions were based on ‘business as usual’ emissions growth for the rest of the economy. So you’ve been doubly dishonest by taking the lowest figure and assuming a world that does nothing to stop climate change.
The fourth assessment report of the IPCC implies that emissions released from aircraft at altitude are 2.7 times as damaging to the climate as emissions released at ground level. That’s not controversial. Even the Treasury – hardly an outlet for green propaganda – uses a factor of 2.5.
The Stern Review said, ‘It is critical that governments consider how to avoid the risks of locking into a high-carbon infrastructure, including considering whether any additional measures may be justified to reduce the risks.’ New runways are virtually the definition of high-carbon infrastructure. Friends of the Earth calculate, using figures based on the Stern Review, that the carbon cost1 of Heathrow expansion would be £13.4 billion!
The government’s upcoming Climate Bill excludes aviation from having to make emissions reductions. You’ve been lobbying to keep it that way. Michelle – what’s so special about the aviation industry that it should be above the law?
Yours, Joss
Dear Joss,
I did not dispute that there are other factors to be taken into account when assessing aviation’s contribution to climate change – though, while we’re on the subject of correcting misapprehensions, carbon emissions are the same whether they are released on the ground or at altitude.
The IPCC set out a range of scenarios precisely because of the high degree of scientific uncertainty. Scientists are doing a lot of work to understand this better. Your other misapprehension is the suggestion that radiative forcing is a characteristic only of aviation. All activities which contribute to climate change have a radiative forcing effect. Once there is better understanding of whether a multiplier is a meaningful measure, this will need to be applied across the board.
We support the government’s Climate Change Bill because international solutions such as emissions trading will be more effective at tackling what is an international problem.
I note you do not seek to justify your comment that ‘flying is the most environmentally damaging thing you can do’ because it is not, in fact, defensible. I am disappointed that you completely ignore the impact of your demands on farmers in Africa – I expected more of you.
Yours, Michelle
The government’s upcoming Climate Bill excludes aviation from having to make emissions reductions. You’ve been lobbying to keep it that way
Dear Michelle,
If you’d like to take on the Soil Association over their definition of ‘organic’, feel free. Plane Stupid’s demands are concerned with eliminating the thousands of unnecessary flights between places like London and Manchester or Paris: journeys which can be made just as quickly, in greater comfort, and at 10 per cent of the climate impact, by train. We would consider the main impact of our demands on Africa to be giving them a chance to avoid the bloodiest catastrophe in their history, a catastrophe which your demands, if met, will guarantee.
I’m intrigued by your insistence that getting on a plane is not the most environmentally damaging thing you can do. A flight from London to Paris emits 61kg of CO2 per person and takes roughly an hour. If you could provide me with some examples of ways that one person could emit more than 60kg of CO2 in an hour, perhaps that would help us to get the aviation issue in perspective.The only things I’ve come up with so far are starting a major forest fire, blowing up an oil rig or taking a rocket into space.
Yours, Joss
Dear Joss,
I’m delighted that Plane Stupid now accepts that the majority of flights are necessary.
UK aviation accounts for just 0.1 per cent of global carbon emissions – and flights between London and Manchester or Paris make up a tiny percentage of that. So you must agree that even if everyone in the UK stopped flying tomorrow it would make a negligible difference to climate change. If you are truly serious about tackling climate change, and if we are going to make a difference and prevent the worst climate impacts on Africa, the focus must be on international solutions and, domestically, on the major contributors such as road transport, buildings and power generation where we can make quick and efficient carbon savings. Aviation will play its part through emissions trading and commitments to improve its operations and fuel efficiency.
Given that background, I genuinely find it incomprehensible that Plane Stupid should spend so much time, energy and resource on a sector which contributes 0.1 per cent of global carbon emissions. However, now that we agree that most flights are ‘necessary’, I am hopeful that we will find a constructive way forward. Perhaps Plane Stupid will even welcome the billions being poured into research and development annually to make flying cleaner and quieter? Oh well, there’s always hope...!
Yours, Michelle
References
1. The carbon cost is a notional price that tries to take account of the true economic cost of climate change damage done by developments in transport, construction, housing, planning and energy. It represents the cost to society of the environmental damage done by these developments.
Government economists have set the price at £25.50 a carbon tonne for 2007, rising annually to £59.60 a tonne by 2050.
Joss Garman is spokesperson for Plane Stupid
Michelle di Leo is the Director of FlyingMatters