Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

In a Special Report launched today, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution expresses deep concern about the global impacts of the rapid growth in air travel. Air transport operates globally and its impacts on the atmosphere, particularly those that could result in climate change, could have worldwide consequences.

The Chairman, Sir Tom Blundell said:

"Emissions from aircraft are likely to be a major contributor to global warming if the present increase in air traffic continues unabated. The government shows little sign of having recognised that action to reduce the impacts of air transport is just as important as action in other sectors contributing to climate change. The problems are challenging but it is imperative that environmental priorities are not simply sidelined as being too difficult. If no limiting action is taken, the rapid growth in air transport will proceed in fundamental contradiction to the government's stated goal of sustainable development.

Short-haul passenger flights, such as UK domestic and European journeys, make a disproportionately large contribution to the global environmental impacts of air transport and these impacts are very much larger than those from rail transport over the same point-to-point journey.

A shift away from the use of air transport over such distances could reap considerable environmental benefits as well as relieving pressure on major airports. Rail transport is demonstrably more sustainable than air transport. The fact that rail transport cannot compete at present, at least in the UK, is a consequence of several factors, but these certainly include a failure to invest in a rail infrastructure and a failure to reflect environmental externalities in the cost of air transport.

Instead of encouraging airport expansion and proliferation, it is essential that the government should divert resources into encouraging and facilitating a modal shift from air to high-speed rail for internal UK travel and some intra European journeys."

The Royal Commission notes the ambitious targets for technological improvement - such as new airframe and engine designs and alternative fuels - and considers the potential for such developments to mitigate environmental effects. However, the Report concludes that the projected increase in demand will easily outstrip any such technological developments for several decades.

The Royal Commission expresses disappointment that international aviation emissions were left out of the Kyoto Protocol and recommends they are included in the emissions trading scheme envisaged as one of the Kyoto Protocol's implementing mechanisms. In the meantime a charge on aircraft movements to reflect environmental impacts would send an important signal to travellers about the environmental implications of flying, and the revenue generated should be used to develop more environmentally benign transport modes.

The continued growth in air freight is also a major concern. It is so much more environmentally damaging than other freight transport modes that it must be reserved for very high value, and usually perishable, goods. The Royal Commission argues that any proposal to expand air freight movements must be examined with particular care.

The Chairman said in summing up:

"With respect to the expansion of airports across the country, the government has said that 'doing nothing is not an option'. This may be so, but it does not mean that the only option is airport expansion. Emphasis should shift towards providing reliable, efficient and more sustainable alternatives to air flight.

We urge the government to seize the opportunity presented by its forthcoming White Paper to implement our recommendations at the domestic level, and to argue for their adoption by the EU, and globally, where necessary and appropriate."

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) has prepared its own response to the consultation on air transport policy. In it, the SDC argues for a much wider-ranging public debate on the objectives of a sustainable policy for aviation and airport development. SDC member Charles Secrett presented the response at the same press conference as the Royal Commission's Report.

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is an independent body, appointed by the Queen and funded by the government, which publishes in-depth reports on what it identifies as the crucial environmental issues facing the UK and the world.

The Royal Commission's full reports are presented to Parliament. This Special Study has been carried out over a much shorter timescale than full reports, but it is based heavily on reports that the Royal Commission has published in the past, together with some new material. It is intended to inform the policy process behind the forthcoming White Paper on the future of aviation.

The Report is published alongside the Royal Commission's response to the government's regional consultation on The Future Development of Air Transport in the UK.^[1] The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight is available in printed form, or can be downloaded from the Commission's website: http://www.rcep.org.uk/aviation.html. Copies of the printed version are obtainable without charge from Rosemary Ferguson (tel: 020 7799 8972, fax: 020 7799 8971, email: rosemary.ferguson@rcep.org.uk ).

CONTACTS
Press enquiries should be directed to Anna Bradbury, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 5-8 The Sanctuary, Westminster, London SW1P 3JS (tel: 020 7799 8987, email: anna.bradbury@rcep.org.uk ).

PREVIOUS ROYAL COMMISSION REPORTS RELATED TO AVIATION
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has had a longstanding interest in the environmental effects of transport, including aviation, since its First Report in 1970. Its Eighteenth Report, Transport and the Environment, published in 1994, covered transport issues in depth and included a chapter dedicated to aviation. A further report on transport (the Twentieth Report, Transport and the Environment - Developments since 1994) was published in 1997. Neither of these Reports has yet received an official response. Both Reports favoured the idea of an integrated transport policy to encourage the least environmentally damaging form of transport for each leg of any journey.

Since these Reports were published, the case for action to limit climate change has become even more compelling. The Commission's Twenty-second Report, Energy - The Changing Climate, was published in 2000. It called for the UK to take a lead role in international negotiations to combat climate change and to set an example by aiming to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050. In this context, the Commission replied to the government's first round of consultation on the future of air transport, and asserted that 'aviation's impacts on the global environment, and climate change in particular. represent an overarching constraint on the future growth of air transport'.^[2] The Commission considered that the government's consultation documents failed to recognise the magnitude of the threat posed by climate change and aviation's contribution to that threat.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF CIVIL AIRCRAFT IN FLIGHT
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in 1999 an authoritative study, Aviation and the Global Atmosphere. This study clearly set out the effects of aviation on climate change. Research performed since that which provided the basis for the IPCC report in general supports their estimates of the total climatic impact of this mid-range scenario. The Commission has shown that the 1999 study, which assumed a substantial level of technological development, based its main findings on a mid-range growth scenario for air transport that has already been exceeded. Therefore, the environmental impacts of air transport are likely to be greater than the IPCC's predictions.

The IPCC report predicts that about 5% of the total global radiative forcing (a measurement roughly proportional to an estimate of global warming) by 2050 will come from aviation. If the stabilisation of greenhouse gases proposed in the Commission's Twenty-second Report is achieved through other sectors alone, that same growth in emissions from aviation would amount to 6% of the global radiative forcing at that time. Present indications are that this is more likely to be an under- rather than an over-estimate and there is a danger that the actual number could be closer to the 14% given by the higher aviation growth. Despite this, the emissions from international aviation have been excluded from the Kyoto Protocol and the industry remains exempted from fuel duty under the Chicago Convention of 1944.

In an analysis of the possible technological measures to reduce the environmental effects of air transport, the Commission concluded that, unusually, there was little scope for significant improvements in the medium-term. The incremental improvements that could be seen in existing engines and fuels are likely to be far outweighed by the growth in the sector. The Commission supports proposals for new airframe designs that would have greater fuel efficiency and lower cruise altitudes. However, it will be some decades before such aircraft form a significant proportion of the world fleet and would in any case only affect the impacts of long-distance flights.

Alternative aviation fuels, most notably hydrogen, were felt to be unlikely to prove practicable and could even have the potential to be more damaging than kerosene. The Commission also concluded that any future development of a fleet of supersonic aircraft would be particularly damaging.

The Commission proposes that some form of demand management must be implemented in order to avoid serious long-term damage to the environment. The Commission sees this being achieved principally through two lines of approach; moderating demand by raising the cost of air travel and limiting the capacity for further growth, while encouraging modal shift away from air transport to the less environmentally damaging rail.

The Commission is also concerned about the rapid growth in air freight, which is currently growing faster than passenger travel. Carbon dioxide and fuel use per tonne-kilometre for rail or marine freight transport is dramatically lower than it is for air transport. Air freight must be reserved only for high value, and usually perishable, goods. The proposals to allow the development of 'express parcel hubs' send a disappointing message, and that any developments to expand the capacity for air freight movements must be examined with particular care.

The exemption of aviation from taxation amounts to an unfair subsidy for the industry but the international nature of the industry could make renegotiation of this exemption unfeasible. The Commission recommends that the government press instead for EU action to secure an emissions charge on take-off and landing, which would be large enough, when passed down to the consumer, to make an appreciable difference to ticket prices. This increase and the reason behind such a charge should be displayed on the ticket.

Limiting airport capacity would also moderate demand. At current projections for unconstrained growth, UK airports would be serving over a billion passengers a year by 2050. By restricting slot availability these numbers would be much reduced and the increased competition for slots would mean that short-haul routes would tend to be abandoned in favour of the more profitable longer-haul routes, which have lower emissions per passenger-kilometre.

Encouraging modal shift would also help diminish the number of highly damaging short-haul flights, in particular the domestic routes. The Royal Commission recommends that the government develop rail networks around 'hub' airports for passenger transport, rather than allowing a proliferation of regional feeder airports. An efficient, high speed, electric rail service would allow better use of the existing airport capacity and provide a less environmentally damaging alternative to both domestic and some European flights.

^[1] Department for Transport (2002). The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom: A National Consultation.

^[2] Consultation on the future of aviation: Response by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (see http://www.rcep.org.uk/news/01-1c.html , paragraph 7).

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