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Tag: airport expansion

  • Airlines should pay for CO2 removal if Heathrow expands, say climate advisers

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    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/16/heathrow-airport-should-pay-co2-removal-expand-climate-advisers

    Heathrow airport wants to build a third runway and new terminals. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

    Climate Change Committee says government cannot expand airport without requiring aviation industry to clean up its emissions

    Heathrow airport should be allowed to expand only if airlines pay for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the government’s climate advisers have said.

    …

    Nigel Topping, the chair of the CCC, said: “The government cannot expand Heathrow airport without requiring the aviation industry to clean up its emissions. Therefore, the government should legislate policies that require the aviation industry to fully address all of their emissions by 2050, either directly or by purchasing engineered removals. The polluter-pays principle must apply.”

    …

    But campaigners rejected the CCC’s plan of relying on nascent technologies to wipe out the impact of an expansion that would commit the UK to much higher emissions for decades, and called on ministers to halt all airport expansion.

    Tony Bosworth, campaigner at Friends of the Earth, accused the CCC of “pulling its punches”, pointing to recent research by the Tyndall Centre that found SAF and carbon removals were unproven and unlikely to ramp up in time to the extent needed to justify airport expansion.

    “The CCC should have made it crystal clear: there is no plausible way to expand Heathrow without wrecking the UK’s climate targets,” he said.

    Frequent flying is overwhelming skewed towards the wealthy. In any year, only about half of people in England take a flight abroad, while about 80% of all flights abroad were taken by people who took two or more flights – about a quarter of the population. Frequent flyers – those who took five or more return flights abroad in 2024 – made up only 5% of the population, but accounted for a third of all flights.

    Those in the highest income group took 38% of all flights abroad – four times as many flights as those in the lowest income group, according to the National Travel Survey of England in 2024.

    …

    See the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/16/heathrow-airport-should-pay-co2-removal-expand-climate-advisers

  • Green Party MPs seek to amend King’s Speech to include measures to tackle the cost-of-living, climate change and inequality

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    Green Party MP Hannah Spencer by ©House of Commons, CC BY 3.0
    Green Party MP Hannah Spencer by ©House of Commons, CC BY 3.0

    Hannah Spencer MP said: 

    My Green colleagues and I are so incredibly disappointed in this King’s Speech, but it’s not a surprise. In the wake of a devastating set of local election results for the Labour Party, the Prime Minister and the government should have used this opportunity to lay out an urgent, transformative, progressive programme to redistribute wealth, tackle the nature and climate crisis and make life affordable for everyone. 

    My Green colleagues and I will seek to amend the government’s plans to include the urgent action needed to bring down people’s bills – rent controls, nationalising water, freezing energy prices, and taxing wealth. We need to see these measures despite the Labour Party’s drama, and even if there’s a different Prime Minister this time tomorrow!

    I’m disappointed that instead of using this opportunity to get behind the Green Party’s demands, the government has laid out more of the same fiddling around the edges. There’s some positive movement on democratic reform and EU alignment, but also worrying double-downs on airport expansion and their cruel, unworkable immigration policy.

    I was elected to give a voice to a politics that represents everyone. This is the first King’s Speech I have been in Parliament to hear, and I haven’t heard anywhere near enough to make meaningful changes to people’s lives. It’s a missed opportunity, it’s disappointing, and it’s out of touch. The people of this country deserve so much more.

    The amendment will include: 

    • Freezing energy prices in July to stop them going up by over £300
    • New powers to control rents
    • Funding for councils to buy existing homes from private landlords
    • Water utilities to be brought back into public ownership
    • Free bus passes for under 22s
    • Universal free school meals
    • Further measures to tax fossil fuel companies and the extreme wealth of billionaires and multimillionaires

  • Gatwick expansion unwanted, say Greens

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    Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry. Image by Kelly Hill, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
    Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry. Image by Kelly Hill, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Responding to the Transport Secretary’s decision to bring Gatwick Airport’s northern terminal into constant use, Siân Berry Green MP for Brighton Pavilion said:

    “The Labour government is trashing its climate credentials one absurd decision at a time. Only one day after receiving critical advice from its own climate advisors on the need to lower flying demand, ministers continue to support yet more unnecessary expansion for the benefit of wealthy investors.

    “Pushing through these damaging plans shows such poor economic judgement. Over 100,000 extra flights a year won’t deliver for our communities. Labour should listen to the public who think airport expansion is the wrong priority. Most of us fly once a year if at all and would rather see cheaper train tickets and more bus routes instead to help with our daily journeys and create jobs where we live, in contrast with frequent flyers leaching money out of the economy.

    “The green economy grew by ten per cent last year, and this is where Labour should be investing to deliver high-wage, long-term jobs across the entire country.”

  • Thoughts of the day 27 May 2025

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    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
    Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards

    So BP representing the fossil fuels industry and the filthy rich has given the climate, biodiversity and all humanity an unambiguous big two fingers. They’re saying fekk you, our profits come before anything, we continue to destroy the climate and all else. Despite the UK government saying no new licences in the North Sea we don’t know where they’re at with licence decisions pending for Rosebank and Jackdaw and government support for airport expansions at Gatwick and Heathrow. If they were serious about climate there would be no hesitation in refusing all these projects. Then there’s the big orange slug that Starmer is reporting to today. The planet can’t afford any of this. Capitalist scum have already fekked the climate, it’s going to get destroyed at a far greater rate now and these absolute bstards are pulling out all the stops.

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.

  • Heathrow expansion cannot be quick fix to economy, campaigners warn

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/heathrow-expansion-cannot-be-quick-fix-to-economy-campaigners-warn

    Activists from Fossil Free London and Green New Deal Rising take part in a protest against a third runway at Heathrow, and expansion at Gatwick and Luton, outside Siemens Healthineers in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, January 29, 2025

    HEATHROW expansion cannot be the quick fix to the economy, campaigners warned today after the government backed a new multibillion-pound investment programme.

    The airport’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye announced funding for upgrades and expansion ahead of its proposal for a third runway, expected to be submitted to the government this summer.

    The government said that the investment programme will secure thousands of steel jobs by increasing the demand for British-made steel.

    But polling by climate charities suggests a majority of the public believes expansion is the “wrong priority,” with 67 per cent of respondents also saying they did not see much, if any, benefit to taxpayers.

    No Third Runway Coalition chairman Paul McGuinness called the announcement “almost Orwellian,” arguing that the government had relied on a Heathrow-commissioned report to promote the project rather than its own Treasury assessment.

    …

    Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said that the “real winners” will be Mr Woldbye and “the rest of the polluting aviation industry.”

    “The only ‘perks’ for most people will be noise, air pollution and climate emissions,” he said.

    Dr Parr said a third runway is “bad economics,” saying: “Instead of picking up any old polluting project from the discard pile, the Chancellor should focus on green industries that can attract investment and bring economic and social benefits for years to come, like secure jobs, affordable energy bills and cheaper, better transport.”

    …

    Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/heathrow-expansion-cannot-be-quick-fix-to-economy-campaigners-warn