Plane stupid

We need to reduce flights to tackle the climate crisis, not increase them. 

This is widely understood and accepted, with clear consensus that the minority of frequent flyers cutting back on flights is vital to ensuring the UK plays its part in combating the climate crisis and meeting our legally binding net-zero targets. 

And yet, the expansion of London City Airport has just been given the go-ahead by the new government, meaning that its annual passenger cap will increase from 6.5 million people to nine million people. 

Leadership

The airport has said this will be met by an increase in the number of morning flights from 6am to 9am. This will of course mean even more noise pollution for local residents, and more air pollution for Londoners. 

The airport’s claim that this will allow “cleaner, quieter, next generation” aircraft to be used simply doesn’t stack up, as any slight gains in efficiency from newer planes will be more than cancelled out by the increased number of  planes in the sky.

A small bright spot in this deeply worrying decision from the new government is that the proposal to extend the airport’s Saturday cut-off time for flights from 12:30pm to 6:30pm was rejected. 

This recognised the serious harm that noise pollution causes to people living in the surrounding area. 

However, it is extremely disappointing that ministers have failed to reject this application entirely on the basis of the harm it will cause to Londoners, to our climate, and to the UK’s ability to regain a leadership role on tackling action on emissions.

Lungs

The approval flies in the face of widespread opposition from Newham Council, local residents, and London Assembly Members – not to mention anyone who’s concerned about the climate crisis, or the incredibly high levels of inequality afflicting the UK. Even local authorities miles away from London City Airport were opposed to the plans.

The government’s own scientific advisors, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), were among the voices warning that airport expansion is utterly incompatible with getting the UK’s emissions into line with our legally binding targets.

The CCC recommended no increases to the UK’s airport capacity, with their voice backed up by climate action groups including Possible and think-tank the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which warned that an expansion of high-carbon transport used primarily by the wealthiest few is the last thing our capital city needs.

The new government took a welcome stance of leadership on climate, and it’s been heartening to see their steps forward on clean energy. 

It’s therefore deeply disappointing that they have failed their first major test on climate by allowing the expansion of this polluting, high-carbon project, choosing the profits of big business over the lungs of Londoners or the health of our climate. 

Vital

There is overwhelming evidence showing that the expansion will do more harm than good, with the purported economic benefits failing to stack up, but the government is allowing it to proceed regardless. Why?

The expansion will benefit only the private jet users and frequent flyers who fly into and out of this airport, who are completing journeys that our new research with the NEF has shown could easily be done by train. 

In fact, our analysis finds that over half of the journeys taken from London City Airport last year could be reached in six hours or less by train and that 43 per cent of seats on planes out of the airport were occupied by passengers who flew at least once every two months.

This ease of travel for private jet users and frequent flyers comes at the expense of more air pollution for the low-income and minority Londoners who live and work in the area surrounding London City Airport, while pumping more emissions into the atmosphere that will set us further back from our vital climate goals.

Dangerous

The reality is that the aviation industry has utterly failed to get its emissions on track, and we cannot expand airports in a climate crisis.

Any government serious about the climate is going to have to face the fact that the overall number of flights need to come down, and that means that the small group of people who take most of the flights will need to fly less. 

This expansion should never have been approved, and it sends an extremely worrying signal to the aviation industry that they are free to keep on expanding even as their emissions soar upwards.

This makes it even more crucial to continue to oppose the other airport expansion proposals that the new government will also have to decide on – along with the outdated and no longer fit for purpose planning framework that has allowed this dangerous decision to be made. 

This Author

Alethea Warrington is a senior campaigner at climate charity Possible.