Global Warming Environment

The government has some good climate policies. It also has some bleeding disastrous ones, which appear to commit the United Kingdom to high carbon pollution for the entire period covered by the bill. A future labor government would find itself snared by its own current policies. Surely it wouldn’t be foolish enough to set such a trap for itself?

One policy alone seems to doom future governments to prosecution: the planned doubling of the capacity of the UK’s airports by 2030. Using the Department for Transport’s projections, I estimate that by 2050 aeroplanes will account for 91% of all the greenhouse gases the country should be producing. Under the less optimistic figures published by Defra, the environment department, the proportion rises to 258%.

Until now this hasn’t been a problem: the government has refused to include aircraft pollution in the 2050 target. But following an amendment in the Lords, the draft bill imposes a duty on the government either to include it or to explain to parliament why it hasn’t done so, within five years. The government claims that it might not be possible to add these gases to the UK’s carbon budget because, “in the absence of an internationally agreed methodology”, no one knows how to calculate what proportion of this pollution belongs to us.

It’s a knotty problem, isn’t it? If you were the government and you knew that 67% of the passengers using UK airports were residents of this country, could you work out what proportion of aircraft emissions should be counted in the UK’s carbon budget? No? Me neither. Wouldn’t know where to begin.

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