Leeds Bradford Airport's expansion plans mean that it would massively increase its greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time that Leeds City Council has declared a Climate Emergency, the airport would be making the climate crisis worse.
But there is still time to prevent the worst. We can cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can make the right choices today. We can build a better future.
The Climate Change Committee is a group of experts who advise the government on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They have recommended that passenger numbers should not be allowed to grow at all up to 2030, then any growth should be limited to 2% by 2035 and no more than 10% by 2040.
LBA wants 57% more passengers by 2030 and 143% by 2045. That is simply irresponsible.
“Time is no longer on our side… what we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years”
But that’s not the whole picture: aviation’s climate impact isn’t limited to CO2. There are other types of greenhouse gases, usually emitted at altitude, which make the total climate damaging impact of flying, on average, 3 times the effect of CO2 alone.
By 2050, even if there is progress on alternative fuels and new technologies, the Climate Change Committee expects aviation to be the biggest source of greenhouse gases in the UK.
Why on earth do the government and aviation industry want to make the problem even worse by expanding?
It’s incredibly unfair to our children and their children to allow aviation’s greenhouse gas problem to get worse before there are any proven, large scale solutions.
Despite all the aviation industry’s promises and glossy adverts, all independent scientific analyses show there is no realistic prospect of aviation reaching net zero by 2050 unless we stop the planned increase in flying.
Flying is also a very unequal activity. Just 15% of people in the UK take 70% of all flights – and cause a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions that damage the climate we all depend on. Whereas half the population does not fly at all in any given year. At a global level, the inequality is even more stark. Just 1% of the world’s population causes half of all the emissions from aviation.
Our Jet Zero campaign explains more about why the so-called solutions to aviation’s greenhouse gas problem are false hopes.
There’s more information about so-called ‘sustainable’ aviation here.
And the team at Stay Grounded have some excellent fact-sheets and information to download and share.
Leeds Bradford Airport is big enough already
