Airline pilots report 'pure propaganda' says Greenpeace

Greenpeace today branded a report by airline pilots on climate change 'pure propaganda... a dodgy dossier produced by people who should know better.'

The new report from the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) claims aviation is being scapegoated by environmentalists, alleging campaigners use 'half-truths' in the climate debate. BALPA presents no evidence to back up the claim, but a reading of the report reveals BALPA has relied on an almost comical reading of the statistics to back up its claims.

Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "This report is pure propaganda. Frankly the aviation industry should be embarrassed by this nonsense. The authors assume everyone drives a top of the range 4x4 across continents, before taking the QE2 then jumping on a Maglev bullet train, and still they have to conclude that flying is worse for the climate. You'd think this union would know better than to play fast and loose with reality. When ministers receive this report in the post they can safely drop it into the recycling bin before phoning scientists to hear the truth."

This morning on Sky News, Captain Mervyn Granshaw of BALPA declined to defend the claims made in his report, saying: "If we are wide of the mark in any of our assumptions we invite any input."

On page 6 of the report BALPA says: "Many of the other modes of travel that compete with air transport are, according to much scientific research, more polluting than aircraft, both in overall noise and emissions. So encouraging people to switch from air travel to rail, coach or sea transport (even if that were practicable) would be counter-productive in trying to reduce atmospheric emissions."

This is simply not true, and BALPA presents no scientific evidence. Indeed on page 14 of the same report, BALPA's own graph shows that rail consistently comes out as markedly less polluting, even using BALPA's own deeply flawed comparison. The comparison is flawed because BALPA compares aviation to the Maglev bullet train. But no well known environmental policy group is encouraging the use of Maglevs while all plane versus train comparisons quoted by such groups refer to standard rail as it already exists (which is 8-10 times less damaging to the climate than flying). The report consistently ignores the effect of 'radiative forcing' - the well-understood phenomenon by which aviation emissions are at least twice as damaging to the climate because they are released at altitude.

BALPA goes on to compare aviation figures from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with car figures which assume that per person, per car, per km, 400g of CO2 is emitted. Even the most gas-guzzling 4x4s would struggle to pollute that much yet BALPA assumes that's the norm. Furthermore, BALPA assumes that one person on his or her own might drive that kind of vehicle on a journey of 6000km. Even then, aviation comes out as more polluting.

On page 47, it is claimed "ships, as currently configured for passenger operation, are hugely more carbon inefficient than air travel." A comparison is then made using the QE2 as an example with the conclusion, "many uninformed people assume that shipping is a sustainable alternative to aviation"

In reality no serious green group is talking about travelling on the QE2 when they suggest ferries are less polluting than planes.

The report claims aviation will only account for 6 per cent of climate damage by 2050.

But chapter six of the latest IPCC report states it will account for as much as 15 per cent by 2050 - and that figure makes the favourable assumption that other sectors won't reduce emissions. If other industries do, aviation's contribution as a percentage will rise even higher than 15 per cent.

Captain Mervyn Granshaw, the union's chairman, claims: "Our report clearly shows that technological advances now being researched will cut aircraft emissions still further. It would be inappropriate therefore, and premature, to restrict air transport at this time."

But the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution noted that anticipated changes to aircraft design would only deliver relatively small reductions in CO2 and that any radically new aircraft design is decades away, by which time it may be too late to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

In truth even the aviation-friendly New Labour government accepts aviation accounts for 13 per cent of the UK's climate impact (as stated in an answer to a parliamentary question on 2nd May this year). According to the world-renowned Tyndall Centre the UK will have to decarbonise the rest of its economy to meet its long term emissions targets if aviation expands to the extent predicted. Dr Kevin Anderson, who led the research at the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University, said at the time: "If the UK government does not curb aviation growth, all other sectors of the economy will eventually be forced to become carbon neutral. It will undermine the international competitiveness of UK industry."

For more information, contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.

Note - aviation is 8-10 times more damaging to the climate - based on DfT figure that short haul air emits 0.15 kg CO2 per passenger Km multiplied by 2.7 for radiative forcing. DfT estimates rail on average emits 0.04 kg CO2/km.