Aviation expansion: a choice for climate chaos

Approval of expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton trailed, in catastrophic climate fail

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to use a speech on growth next week to support a third runway at Heathrow and endorse expansion at Gatwick and Luton airports. This would be a disaster for the climate. Despite the greenwash about so-called 'sustainable aviation fuel' there is no credible technological solution to counter the huge increase in emissions from airport expansion - you can read more about the issues below.

Heathrow alone is already a major contributor to the UK’s carbon footprint, responsible for around 19 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent annually. If this were unchanged with no expansion, by the mid 2030s this one airport would take up a tenth of the UK’s entire annual carbon budget.

This government has claimed to be a climate leader. Its Clean Power Plan, if successful, would save between 46m and 65m tonnes of CO2 in the coming decade by achieving a zero-carbon electricity system in 2030 instead of the 2035 date targeted by the previous government. But an expanded Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton would emit about the same amount in just five years of operation at expanded capacity - in addition to current emissions from these airports AND in addition to other airports also expanding around the country.

The claim that what we need for a healthy UK economy is more airport tarmac is also hugely misguided. Research by the New Economics Foundation has found the economic benefits of airport expansion are often overstated, especially in an already well-connected economy like the UK. Despite significant growth in air passenger numbers over the past two decades there has been no net growth in air travel for business purposes, there has been no net growth in jobs in air transport and real wages in air transport have fallen significantly. Growth has mainly driven outbound leisure travel and increased the travel spending deficit, with the greatest spending losses seen in the UK’s wider regions.

Aviation and climate justice

Even in the UK. access to flying is hugely unequal. Just 15% of frequent flyers take 70% of all the flights, and in a typical year nearly half of us don’t fly at all. Aviation gets a huge tax break because its fuel is not taxed, so making flying artificially cheap compared with more sustainable transport. Proposed measures to redress the balance like a frequent flyer levy have wide public support.

When looked at internationally, the disparity is even more stark. An estimated 2-4% of the world's population took an international flight in 2018 while 80% have never set foot on a plane. A return flight between Paris and New York emits three times as much carbon as the entire annual emissions of an average person in Uganda - and of course the latter is much more vulnerable to the deadly impacts of climate breakdown as a wealthy jet-setter. (More about climate injustice and flying)

The problems with techno-fixes

In short, all of them are either extremely expensive, close to physically impossible, demand a ridiculous share of the planet’s limited resources, and/or wouldn’t actually reduce emissions.

Electric batteries: The weight of batteries compared to fuel makes it implausible, even with technological advanes, that in the next few decades they will be able to power aircraft with more than 10 passengers or for distances greater than about 1000km (less than a flight between Berlin and Marseille). Over 80% of aviation emissions are from flights over 1000km, and for shorter journeys, rail is the obvious alternative.

Hydrogen: To accommodate storage space for large volumes of hydrogen, aircraft will need to be completely redesigned. Even Airbus, who plan to invest in this technology, have admitted that hydrogen will not be widely used in aircraft before 2050. There are also technical and safety questions as yet unanswered. In addition there is the question of sourcing sufficient hydrogen. To be truly zero carbon, it must be made from water using renewable energy. Creating hydrogen in this way is much less energy efficient than direct electrification, so will require large quantities of renewable energy, and it will be needed for other industrial and transport uses, which arguably should be prioritised over flying.

E-fuels: Made from combining hydrogen with CO2, these are extremely inefficient to produce, if not dependent on capturing (and then re-releasing) CO2 from burning fossil fuels. They are also still at the pilot stage and several decades of heavy investment would be needed to scale up production.

Biofuels: There is very limited availability of biofuels which may be truly ‘sustainable’ e.g. cooking oil, and much demand from road transport and other competing uses. Growing crops for biofuels has caused many serious problems, such as land grabs, deforestation and removing land from food cultivation. Despite the International Air Transport Organisation (IATA) aiming in 2009 for 10% biofuels by 2017, as of 2021, only 0.01% of jet fuel was biofuels.

Carbon offsetting: Problems with the technologies listed above mean that there would have to be heavy reliance on offsetting carbon, including to compensate for the two-thirds of aviation’s climate impact which is not caused by CO2 . There is a long history of evidence that offsetting through tree planting or forest protection is unreliable and has been linked to human rights and biodiversity damage. Engineering solutions such as removing CO2 from the atmosphere are similarly unproven.

You can find more information in our 2021 Jet Zero factsheet, and in greenwashing factsheets from Stay Grounded.

The elephant in the room - aviation's climate impact tripled

When we see aeroplanes flying overhead, they leave behind contrails. This emission water vapour, nitrogen oxides and particulates at high altitude creates an a ‘blanket’ warming the planet, in addition to the long term addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. The best current estimates are that non-CO2 emissions triple the heating impact of aviation compared to CO2 alone. And yet almost all policy decisions on aviation expansion are taken without acknowledging flying's real climate footprint.

Resources

For more information on aviation campaigning, check out Stay Grounded (international) and No Airport Expansion (UK) which Campaign against Climate Change support.

Trade union flyers: 'Why workers should oppose aviation expansion' - download or request copies climatetradeunion@gmail.com

Further information and references for these flyers