Mayor’s climate plan ignores emissions from flights

GALBA has responded to a consultation by the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, on her Climate Action Plan

Mayor Tracy Brabin is currently consulting on a plan to make West Yorkshire carbon net zero by 2038. Her ambition is very welcome. The recent floods in the UK and wildfires in Los Angeles are reminders of just how bad things will get if we continue to pollute the climate by burning dirty fossil fuels. The good news is that the switch to clean, safe renewable energy is already well under way.

However, while the Mayor rightly wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transport in our region by 1,300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, she also wants the airport to expand to seven million (and more) passengers a year. That expansion would add around 1,800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This is a misguided and self defeating approach to tackling climate change.

We can leave a better world to our children and grandchildren if we listen to the scientific experts and act on their advice. The UK’s Climate Change Committee has repeatedly said that airports should not be allowed to expand because that can only mean an increase in their greenhouse gases. I ask the Mayor to think again, accept the facts and withdraw her support for airport expansion.

Below you can see GALBA's response to the consultation in respect of Leeds Bradford Airport

These are all good objectives and have the full support of GALBA. However, your efforts will be significantly undermined if Leeds Bradford Airport is allowed to expand to 7, or even 10, million passengers per year – as supported by the Mayor.

On p21, your draft plan states: “Decarbonisation of transport and modal shift could reduce 1.3 megatonnes of CO2e.” It doesn’t say over what period that would occur but I assume it’s either 2025-2028 (the length of the plan) or 2025-2038 (the net zero target date). It would be useful to know which. But allowing LBA to expand to 7 million passengers a year would emit between 1.78 and 1.85 megatonnes of CO2e over 9 years.

Using LBA’s own figures from its 2020 planning application, which also aimed for expansion from 4 million to 7 million passengers per year, this increase would cause, in total (operation plus construction), over nine years, an extra 461,668 tonnes CO2e.

However, an independent assessment of LBA’s application by WSP (a global expert planning and environmental consultancy), commissioned by LCC’s planning dept, concluded that LBA’s figure was a major underestimate. LBA had failed to take into account emissions from inbound flights and non-CO2 emissions. Para 3.2.2 of the WSP review states:

“Together, the above elements would lead to a very much higher estimate of emissions from aircraft movements resulting from the proposed development (in the order of 4 times the total emissions presented)”.

So a more credible figure for the increased emissions over 9 years, resulting from 3 million additional passengers per year at LBA, is 1.85 megatonnes of CO2e.

However, the government has set a deadline of 2030 for all UK air traffic to use 10% ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel (SAF). There is much scepticism among independent experts about the true sustainability of ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel and about the prospect of there being enough of it in production to make up 10% of all UK aviation fuel demand by 2030.

At best, SAF reduces emissions by 75% over its full lifecycle – though when burned it immediately produces the same amount of emissions as kerosene. Nonetheless, if we assume the government’s genuinely sustainable SAF use target is achieved, that would mean that for roughly half the 9 year forecast period, 10% of all fuel used at LBA would see a 75% emissions reduction, reducing the total emissions by 0.07 megatonnes of CO2e.

So the total additional emissions over 9 years, as a result of LBA expanding by 3 million passengers per year and using 10% SAF in all fuels from 2030, would be approximately 1.78 megatonnes CO2e.

Therefore, the draft plan should also include an objective to prevent any expansion of LBA until such time as genuinely zero emission aviation fuels exist at scale, in order to support the govt’s legally binding commitment to achieve net zero by 2050. This is also the repeated recommendation of the govt’s expert advisers on the Climate Change Committee.

Note: I can provide references to the documents used above and a spreadsheet to show you the calculations made.