Blogposts tagged 'Committee On Climate Change'

UK aviation emissions must be below 2005 levels and we can't trade our way out of it

Posted by christian - 10 September 2009 at 3:31pm - 0 Comments

If we can't trade aviation emissions away, and there's no technology fix, will domestic flights have to face the chop?

Big news on aviation emissions, as the Committee on Climate Change - the government's own independent scientific emissions watchdog - have said that the UK's aviation emissions should be 'capped'.

This would mean that they must remain at or below 2005 levels. When the government announced the third runway at Heathrow, they did say that they would do something similar, but the big caveat was that this cap would be flexible, in that it would be possible for the aviation industry to buy carbon credits through the European emissions trading scheme, to balance growing emissions.

Article tagged as: aviation, aviation expansion, climate change, committee on climate change, heathrow

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'Green' planes and broken promises

Posted by christian - 23 January 2009 at 2:20pm - 10 Comments

A jumbo takes off.

Not green, and not strictly regulated

Last Thursday, while approving the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, Geoff Hoon claimed he was accompanying it with what he called "the toughest climate change regime for aviation of any country in the world." Cleaner planes, tougher regulation, green slots for takeoff and landing - the secretary of state was keen to broadcast the runway's green credentials.

You can understand why it's important for Geoff to make a lot of noise about green planes and strict regulation while cheerleading for a third runway. Pursuing a policy of aviation expansion while committing to an 80 per cent cut in UK emissions by 2050 might seem like a strange thing to be doing, particularly as Lord Turner of the Committee on Climate Change ruled that there must be "clear strategies" in place to cut emissions from aviation, otherwise any cuts made in other sectors will be wiped out.