Heathrow airport [image credit: airport-world.com]
One in the eye for the negativity of the Climate Change Committee and its ‘advice’, i.e. demand, to throttle back the entire aviation industry (Dutch-style) in pursuit of futile climate dogma and meaningless targets.
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Rishi Sunak will face down the Government’s climate advisers over demands for ministers to halt the expansion of airports, The Telegraph can disclose.
In one of the most significant moves yet of the Prime Minister’s shift to approaching net zero in a “proportionate and pragmatic” way, the Government will reject the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) formal advice that all airport expansions must be halted.
The move comes days after Mr Sunak appointed Claire Coutinho, one of his closest political allies, as Net Zero Secretary, amid a growing backlash among Tory MPs over the Government’s climate policies and the cost they are adding to consumer bills.
Ministers believe airport growth will have a “key role” in boosting the UK’s global links and helping to grow the economy.
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The CCC was set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act to hold the Government to account over its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, with its most recent five-year “carbon budget” put into law by Boris Johnson in 2021.
Rejecting its recommendations would set the Government up for a major legal clash with environmental groups. Last year, a High Court judgment said that “considerable weight” should be given to the CCC’s advice. Groups such as Greenpeace are planning to cite the committee’s latest recommendation in legal challenges against further airport expansions.
But a Department for Transport spokesman told The Telegraph: “Airport growth, and the aviation sector as a whole, has a key role to play in boosting our global connectivity and helping grow the economy. We remain supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way.”
Ministers are putting their hope in the rapid development of green aviation fuels to decarbonise the sector. This week, Ms Coutinho will unveil a proposed legal duty on the Government to draw up plans to subsidise so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
Full article here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
September 3, 2023 at 04:01AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 