SSE NEWS ARCHIVE - October to December 2006

It can be frustrating for a tidy person to live with messy flatmates. On carbon emissions, the European Union feels that, while it is making an effort to be tidy, other countries are making the mess worse. The EU, resentful, is tempted to punish the rest of the world by taxing its goods and its aeroplanes. But if you are the only tidy person in a messy household, punishments will do nothing but make you unpopular.

This week Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, dismissed a French proposal for a tax on imports from countries that have not ratified the Kyoto treaty. The EU also delayed, but did not drop, plans to include US and Asian airlines that land in Europe in its carbon emissions trading scheme.

European frustration is understand-able. The cost of EU carbon permits makes it harder for the continent's industries to compete with those who can pollute for free. The EU cannot, meanwhile, tax only European-based airlines on transcontinental routes without destroying their businesses.

But unilateral sanctions will not work. If Europe taxed countries that have not signed Kyoto, China, the US and India would retaliate and the EU would lose. The EU is big. It accounts for 7.5 per cent of the world's population and much more of its economy. But it is not big or rich enough to impose its will.

It is therefore very unlikely that the EU could agree to such a tax. Germany, for example, depends on its US export market. Even if a tax were agreed, the World Trade Organisation would probably consider it illegal under the rules that govern international trade.

This does not mean sanctions should never be used against countries that do not sign an environmental treaty. The Montreal protocol, which ended the production of chlorofluorocarbons, allows for trade barriers against those who do not join in. That stopped countries free-riding on others' effort and made Montreal one of the most effective treaties ever signed.

But there are two differences between Montreal and an EU tax on foreign carbon. The Kyoto protocol, unlike Montreal, does not allow for sanctions. And Montreal was supported by every significant industrial power.

Without that universal support, all European sanctions will do is annoy those the EU needs to persuade about climate change. The EU's best hope is to act on its own carbon emissions and wait for political change in the US.

Extending carbon emissions trading to aircraft would be a step forward. But the EU should stick to domestic flights and should cover private jets, which it currently plans to exempt. That would demonstrate that the scheme is practical and can cut emissions with the lowest possible economic cost.

The EU needs to persuade more of its global housemates to act on climate change. Only once it has done so can it consider bullying the minority of countries that do not join in

OUR COMMENT: Why be fearful of unpopularity? ? especially when it's the right thing to do.

Pat Dale

European Commission plans to integrate air transport into the EU emissions trading system are too weak to substantially reduce the climate impact of the sector according to T&E, a network of sustainable transport groups. The scheme must be accompanied by additional measures applied to all other sectors such as a tax on fuel and VAT on tickets.

Jos Dings, director of T&E said, "After ten years of talk, we welcome the world's first multilateral plan to cut aviation emissions. But the European Parliament and ministers must quickly agree to an end result that actually encourages airlines to cut their emissions rather than giving them a free ride."

"At the moment it looks like the Commission has simply ticked off several items on the industry's wish list, namely free emissions permits, no firm commitment to introduce fuel taxes or deal with non-CO2 impacts, and 75% less emissions covered in the first year of the scheme. Rather than a plan to reduce emissions from aviation, this looks like business as usual and the likelihood of massive windfall profits for the industry" said Dings.

According to a WWF report published on Monday airlines stand to make windfall profits of ?3.5 billion as a result of the proposal for emissions permits to be mostly given away rather than auctioned. This absurd consequence would occur because airlines are likely to follow the example of power companies and pass on the market price of permits to consumers even though they received them for free.

Airlines have complained that that it is unfair to apply a stricter auctioning policy to them than other sectors already in the EU-ETS. However, the emissions cap for airlines is to stabilise emissions at around 90% above their 1990 level. Conversely, all other sectors must cut emissions in line with Kyoto targets i.e. to 8% below the 1990 level. The aviation sector could therefore be given around double the free permits other sectors receive.

"It is stunning that the aviation industry can talk about 'fairness' with a straight face. The fuel tax exemption enjoyed by the sector is worth ?35 billion alone, not to mention the lack of VAT on tickets and the ?20 billion European taxpayers have paid out in rescue aid to airlines." said Dings.

HARLOW MP Bill Rammell is standing his ground against a second runway at Stansted Airport despite renewed calls by the Government for growth.

Mr Rammell reiterated his opposition to another runway at Stansted in light of the progress report into the Government's 2003 Aviation White Paper, which has concluded the airport needs expansion to remain economically in touch with its European neighbours.

However, it also states the runway would be subject to environmental targets and be ready by 2015, four years later than the date originally sought for completion.

The report flies in the face of Uttlesford Council's refusal earlier this month to allow airport owner BAA to expand to 35 million passengers a year at Stansted on its existing runway. A separate application will now go before Uttlesford planners for the second runway.

Mr Rammell told the Star on Monday: "I think the report makes clear that a new runway at the airport, which I have consistently opposed, will be delayed even further, and I will continue to be opposed.

"The report also makes clear that the Government is moving forward on the carbon emissions question."

He added: "I don't think passenger growth can go unchecked and I have both written to and spoken to ministers making clear my opposition.

"What's reassuring is that if it does happen, which I don't think it will or should, it will be some way in the future."

Mr Rammell said the timing of the announcement with the Treasury-financed Barker Report, which called for major planning decisions to be handed back to Whitehall, was purely coincidental.

"I know conspiracy theories are very popular but there is no link between this report and the timing of the Barker Report," he added.

Peter Martin, Essex County Council planning, environment and culture cabinet member, said: "This is vandalism of Essex. A second runway at Stansted is not the answer."

Stop Stansted Expansion's Carol Barbone added: "This is not a progress report at all but the very opposite. It shows the Government remains wedded to the past and unable to grasp the very real need that the key priority is to address climate change, not to build new runways."

BAA chief executive Stephen Nelson said the country could still secure green growth but added: "We cannot turn our back on growth.

"The country needs new runways to accommodate growing demand for flying. Passengers are already suffering delay and congestion because of a lack of airport capacity."

A recent map reveals how Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Canary Wharf will be among the areas at risk of flooding according to a new estimate of rising sea levels.

The need for new defences is underlined by a study that concludes that levels may rise more quickly in the coming decades than previously thought - by as much as an additional metre (39in) over the next century, according to Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading climate expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

A sea level rise of a metre or more would be "very bad news" for major coastal cities, greatly increasing the risk of devastating storm surges. Particularly at risk are cities on or close to North Atlantic shores, such as London, according to his study in the journal Science.

Dr Nassos Vafeidis of the University of the Aegean, Greece, and Prof Rob Nicholls of the University of Southampton and colleagues have weighed up the impact of rising levels on the Thames Estuary, where 1.25 million people currently live, 1.5 million commute and there are assets worth up to £100 billion.

The European commission tabled plans to bring international aviation into the EU emission trading scheme on Wednesday after making last minute cuts in the face of opposition from America and unease among airlines.

Europe must show leadership but also openness to continue dialogue with partners around the world to ultimately create a global emission trading system for aviation, environment commissioner Stavros Dimas told journalists in Brussels.

Under the proposal aviation would join the EU ETS, as expected, from 2011. But only intra-EU flights would be covered for the first year. The change follows hints by US officials that America might take legal action if its airlines are included in the scheme (EED 30/11/05 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/19933).

The commission was set to recommend that airlines should have to buy 10% of their emissions allowances in 2011-12.  It has finally proposed limiting auctioning to the average across the rest of the EU ETS, which will be considerably lower. It is important to treat all industries fairly, Mr Dimas said on Wednesday.

There is no longer a suggestion that airlines could have to surrender twice as many allowances per tonne of CO2 emitted if laws to curb nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions are not implemented by 2010. Instead, the commission says it will put forward a proposal on NOx in 2008.

In other respects, the final proposal is unchanged from a draft on which we reported earlier this month (EED 08/12/06 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/22221).

An EU-wide cap aims to stabilise emissions at 2005 levels for three consecutive trading periods - 2011-12, 2013-17 and 2018-22. Free allowances will be distributed according to tonne-kilometres flown. Airlines can buy allowances from anyone but sell any surplus only to other airlines.

Kyoto credits can be used to a limit that is the average of limits set by member states in their Naps. The commission forecasts no significant impact on EU ETS prices because it expects additional demand for allowances to be soaked up by Kyoto credits.

Airlines responded positively to the commission's decision to limit its ambitions for the scheme. The Association of European airlines welcomed removal of "some of the more extreme elements".  British Airways said it remained concerned at the plan to cover all flights to and from EU airports from 2012.

Environmental groups were unhappy. Brussels-based NGO T&E estimated that emissions would be reduced by only 3%, or less than the sector's current annual growth.  "This looks like business as usual and the likelihood of massive windfall profits for the industry," it warned.

The inclusion of foreign airlines in the European Union's carbon emission trading scheme is to be delayed to head off a transatlantic showdown.

The US and Asian countries reacted angrily to plans to force all airlines that land and take off in the EU to pay to pollute. Washington had served notice it could take legal action against the EU if it included non-EU airlines in 2011, when the scheme is extended from industry to air travel.

On Monday, however, officials in the European Commission, the EU's Brussels-based executive, thrashed out a compromise confining the scheme to travel within the EU, and therefore to EU airlines, before extending it to all air traffic in 2013. EU officials hope a global aviation carbon trading scheme could be up and running by then, defusing scope for a dispute with big trading partners.

In agreeing the staggered approach, environment commissioner Stavros Dimas bowed to Jacques Barrot, transport commissioner, and Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner. The proposal is set to be agreed by the Commission tomorrow and must be approved by member states and the European parliament.

?We will be able to learn how to integrate airlines in the system and promote the benefits from a political and practical point of view,? said a Commission official, who did not wish to be named.

To avoid the problems that plagued the wider trading scheme, which saw national governments being overgenerous in the allocation of permits to industries, Brussels will take direct control of the allocation of permits to airlines.

Some 10 per cent of permits will be auctioned, helping to set a market price, with airlines receiving the rest for free. Mr Dimas had wanted more auctioning of permits but colleagues resisted as the ceiling for the wider scheme is 10 per cent.

But environmental groups called for more of the airlines' emissions to be auctioned, for fear that airlines will try to profit from emissions trading, as UK power generators do at present, by passing on to consumers the notional costs of buying permits despite receiving 90 per cent of them free of charge.

The scheme will add up to ?39 ($51) to the cost of a return long-haul ticket by 2020, according to an impact assessment seen by the Financial Times, based on a carbon price of ?30 a metric tonne. Current prices are below ?10 a tonne.

The extra charge could make private jet travel more attractive for business executives, since they would be exempt, though they pollute more per passenger.

However, the paper argues that ?demand for aviation is, in general, not very price sensitive? so airlines could pass on the costs to passengers. Indeed, it anticipates that emissions trading will hardly affect air travel at all. Instead of growing by 142 per cent between 2005 and 2020, it would rise by 135 per cent.

OUR COMMENT: It is surprising that other business sections are not objecting to subsidising aviation. Do they really believe that a failure to expand the number of flights would imperil their own business? Do they really have any difficulties getting aircraft space now? Crowded airports do cause delays, but airport congestion could be relieved without having extra flights, or passengers ? BUT ? such improvements can only be paid for out of profits which today means more flights. However, perhaps the government could charge a higher airport passenger duty and direct the money into an airport improvement fund with a cap on the number of flights ? as part of each airports' development plans.

Pat Dale

Like a vapour trail left by a jet plane crossing a crowded sky, yesterday's news that the EU will include aviation in its carbon-trading scheme from 2011 was less substantial than it appeared. The announcement carried a superficial drama, a sense of action being taken against an industry, which, uniquely, pays none of the costs of the pollution it causes. The giveaway was the industry's energetic welcome. If the scheme had amounted to anything, Europe's airlines would have been squealing.

Air transport is not the biggest cause of climate change; it is not even the biggest polluter in the transport sector. But road users, who emit more carbon, do pay a crude penalty for doing so in the form of petrol duty. Airlines pay nothing on fuel. To make a difference, any trading scheme needs the clout to cost them (and their passengers) money ? and soon. Instead, the EU intends to hand the industry billions of euros of free carbon credits, based on average emission levels since 2004, in a scheme that will not begin for 5 years.

As the Institute of Public Policy pointed out this week, the proposal amounts to a £2.7bn windfall of free credits. It is true that airlines will have to buy any credits they need over this limit, but even the EU says the cost to passengers will be no more than 9 euros a ticket by 2020, or less than a couple of gin and tonics on Ryanair.

Such indulgence of aviation is routine: it came in another form this week when the Scottish executive announced more subsidies for airlines to persuade them to fly from Edinburgh and Glasgow. As a result easyJet (which says it is ?thrilled? with the new support) is now selling tickets to Munich from the Scottish capital for £21.99. This insane scheme will send stag weekenders to German beer-halls against all environmental logic.

The divergence between rhetoric and action is just as great between Sir Nicholas Stern's report on climate change and the Department of Trade's update of the aviation white paper, which it slipped out last Thursday. The latter offers a token nod towards green goals (Bristol airport is switching to biofuels and Luton is thinking about getting some solar panels) but sticks with the assumption that aviation will grow massively. The consequence, as Sir Nicholas points out, is that pollution will grow too.

Airline flights account for about 1.6% of global emissions, which is not a lot. But the impact is worsened by other gases that are produced and because they are injected into the outer atmosphere. Without restrictions, air travel could cause 5% of a much higher level of emissions by 2050. Sir Nicholas's report backs a proper trading scheme in greenhouse gases, to include airlines, in which credits have real international value.

But he questions the practicality of applying such a scheme to air travel in the near future and suggest that taxing jet fuel might be a sensible move first. The updated white paper ignores this, pointing to the EU trading scheme. Airlines and ministers alike, are using the plans as an excuse for avoiding other more effective, and immediate, action.

The challenge of all emissions trading is that someone, somewhere has to pay if the growth in greehouse gases is to be checked. Sir Nicholas makes a powerful case for a ?deep and liquid? trading system with real bite. Instead, like pretend money in a game of monopoly, carbon credits are being handed out to polluters for free, to play with as they wish.

Even the EU scheme has no central cap. The UK's own emissions trading scheme peters out, incredibly, at the end of this month. The Treasury is still consulting on what should happen next week: weakness echoed in a different form yesterday in its review of energy efficiency schemes which found them ?confusing and difficult?.

OUR COMMENT: Meanwhile greenhouse gas emissions are rising fast, pollution from airlines is growing even more quickly and queues at check-ins from Humberside to Heathrow get longer. Something has got to change: does it have to be the climate?

Pat Dale

This is a crucial week for those of us who are committed to ensuring that aviation plays its full part in the battle against climate change. On Wednesday the European Commission meets in Brussels to decide whether to endorse proposals for the world's first carbon trading scheme for airlines.

For the past seven years, British Airways has led the way in advocating emissions trading as the most environmentally effective method of limiting the impact of air travel on global warming. A trading system means you must either cut your own emissions, or bear the considerable (and increasing) cost of failing to do so. So you might expect that we would be delighted at the prospect of the EU forging ahead with plans to include aviation in its existing trading scheme.

Sadly, we are not. In fact we have grave concerns that the commission is about to set back the cause of carbon trading by adopting plans that are too far-reaching to have a chance of success. In drafting the proposals, environment commissioner Stavros Dimas has allowed idealism to get in the way of pragmatism. There are two issues of particular concern: the geographical scope of the proposal and the methodology for capping aviation's carbon allowances.

The plan to include all flights in and out of the EU as well as all those within the EU is overly ambitious and self-defeating. It will undoubtedly lead to international disputes, as non-EU states and airlines challenge the right of the EU to apply the scheme to them.

The Americans are already reaching for their attorneys, and many Asian and Middle Eastern carriers will line up behind them. If legal action fails, there will be the option of regulatory retaliation against EU operators.

The net result would be a critical delay before any scheme could be implemented - and the delay would be seized on by our critics as proof of our unwillingness to tackle our climate change impact in any serious way.

Our other objection is that the plans treat aviation differently from other sectors already in the EU scheme. For example, up to 40 per cent of aviation's emissions cap would be auctioned to the highest bidder, whereas the existing scheme provides for free initial allocations to participating industries.

There is no case for this kind of punitive discrimination against aviation, or for arbitrarily increasing European airlines' costs and weakening their competitive position against operators in the rest of the world.

Aviation's contribution to global warming is frequently overplayed. According to the recent Stern report, worldwide aviation produces 1.6 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions - less than a sixth of the contribution from road transport. Stern estimates that aviation's figure will reach 5 per cent by 2050 if the industry takes no mitigating action.

If we look at UK aviation's share of global carbon emissions, it is barely 0.1 per cent. So anyone who thinks that strangling UK aviation will solve global warming is sadly deluded.

Airlines provide a public service. People want to travel. They want to do business - to meet customers, suppliers and investors - because they want to create wealth for their families, staff and communities. And they want to experience different cultures in an ever more interconnected world. There is nothing ignoble, selfish or antisocial in this. It reflects the reality of how people want to live their lives and earn their livelihoods in the 21st century.

Our critics claim that carbon trading is some sort of soft option for airlines - a cunning ruse for avoiding green taxes or for passing the buck to other sectors of the economy. These assertions are nonsense. The UK's spurious version of a green tax, air passenger duty, has just been doubled, and now costs British Airways £400m year. It cannot be avoided.

Meanwhile, the idea of passing the buck in relation to climate change is irrelevant and absurd. Climate change is a global problem requiring a global solution. The way to tackle it is to reduce emissions globally. The relative contributions from individual industries or countries do not matter - provided that the overall total is heading downward. That is why an international mechanism like carbon trading is essential, as Stern recognised.

So there is much at stake when the commission meets on Wednesday. It can press ahead with an unrealistic proposal that will go nowhere and delay effective aviation emissions trading for years.

Or it can create a simpler, workable scheme, based on intra-EU flights only, which would establish a model for the rest of the world and demonstrate beyond doubt aviation's seriousness about addressing climate change.

OUR COMMENT: Can he really be serious? Every section of society and of business could make special pleading for favoured treatment. There is no reason why aviation should enjoy emission subsidies when other industries and individuals have to actually reduce their emissions. If business needs become frustrated by a shortage of flights then recreation seats should be sacrificed. Is there really much hardship in suggesting that people should consider taking alternative transport for some of their European holidays?

Pat Dale

Air travel will cost more but airlines will be able to go on expanding for decades without reducing the pollution they emit under an EU agreement to be published next week.

A leak of the EU carbon trading proposals comes as a report says airlines could make windfall profits of up to £2.7 billion as a result of the way the Government has chosen to deal with the soaring levels of greenhouse gases emitted by the expanding aviation industry.

Carbon trading is seen by the Government as key to offsetting pollution from aviation, which has the fastest growing emissions predicted for any sector because of plans to build new runways at Heathrow and Stansted, re-affirmed last week by Douglas Alexander, the Transport Secretary.

A rise in aviation emissions of 142 per cent by 2020 is forecast because of the Government's plans for expanding airports and cheap flights, which environmentalists say are totally incompatible with its stated aim of tackling climate change.

Mr Alexander said last week that the Government intended to ensure that aviation should meet its climate change costs and limit noise and pollution. But, he added, "at the same time we must ensure that the UK has the airport capacity it needs to enhance its economic performance".

However, a leak of the European Commission's proposals for including aviation in its carbon trading scheme - in 2011 rather than 2008 as the Government had wanted - shows that emissions trading would only trim the growth in air travel by a maximum of 2.9 per cent over the 15-year period.

Air travel would still expand 135 to 138 per cent over that period, according to a draft of the environmental impacts of the proposal leaked to environmentalists.

Put another way, the Commission admits that its proposals would achieve a delay of only three to six months in the growth in aviation emissions by 2050.

Airlines would, essentially, be able to pass on the costs of buying emissions permits to their customers while doing very little to reduce their emissions. They would instead buy carbon credits from other industries, at home and abroad, that had managed to cut their emissions.

Brendon Sewill, who chairs the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, said: "The emissions trading scheme is meaningless in terms of reducing the damage done by aviation. Moreover, all the claims made by the aviation industry about its economic importance are made false by the huge tax subsidies it still receives."

The Government's favourite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, warns today that if the airlines are simply given the first allocation of carbon permits they stand to pocket up to £2.7 billion in windfall profits.

Leaks indicate that they will be given 90 per cent of their allocations. The IPPR says airlines will simply pass on the cost of buying the extra credits to passengers and make money out of trading the rest of the permits.

Sir Montgomery Cecil, the president of Unlimited-Spurt - an organisation supposedly committed to aviation growth, which campaigns under the slogan "Sod them. Let's fly" - is emerging as an unlikely champion of the environmental movement.

In a full-page advert that appeared in newspapers yesterday, Sir Monty urged supporters to cut out a coupon and send it to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. It says: "I admire your brave refusal to take action on climate change. Perhaps you should also forget your Aids and immunisation initiatives in Africa."

The adverts are of course a spoof, and Sir Montgomery a figment of the advertiser's imagination, an attempt to heap ridicule on Government and big business for their alleged failure to act decisively over CO2 emissions.

This week's attack on Mr Brown follows one in October which targeted the Department for Transport. Backed by a number of environmental groups, Sir Monty quoted figures saying 150,000 people die each year as a result of climate change, adding: "That's a risk we're prepared to take".

The ad so inflamed the Society of British Aerospace Companies, which represents firms such as Airbus and Rolls-Royce, that it complained, along with a dozen members of the public, to the Advertising Standards Authority. The complaint is still being considered.

Enoughsenough.org, the group behind the most recent advert, has a track record of taking on leading corporate figures such as the supermarket boss Sir Ken Morrison and the Ryanair founder, Michael O'Leary.

Its director, Peter Myers, a former corporate financier turned eco-activist, said Sir Monty was typical of most business leaders. "The difference between him and other CEOs is that he speaks transparently. The others cover themselves with social responsibility reports while 99 per cent of them are plundering the earth's resources and turning it into junk and waste," he said.

Mr Myers said the £20,000 spent was easily recovered by the publicity generated by the controversy. More than 30,000 people logged on to the Unlimited-Spurt website after the first was published. It was named ad of the week by Creative Review and praised by The New York Times.

According to Provokateur's Joshua Blackburn the campaign is unique. "A lot of people were confused and taken in by it while others were genuinely annoyed - which is good. For us it was a win-win situation. If people got what it was about that meant it was an effective piece of communication. If they got wound up about it that was good too."

Those on the receiving end of the campaign feel they are being harshly treated. Paul Everitt of the Society of British Aerospace Companies, said the ads were an "unfair reflection" on the industry and the Government which he said was creating new climate-friendly technologies in the face of unprecedented pressure from the expansion in aviation across the world. "This is a group that would prefer to see aviation return to being the preserve of the rich," he said

A Treasury sources said: "We remain committed to taking the real action necessary, both domestically and internationally to reduce climate change emissions, and that is what people will get with Gordon Brown, not silly gimmicks and stunts."

Willie Walsh says APD is 'just a revenue-raising measure with no direct environmental benefit'. The chief executive of British Airways has challenged the Chancellor to prove that the £400m a year he is levying in tax from the airline's passengers is being used to promote environmentally friendly projects.

Willie Walsh wrote to Gordon Brown on Thursday expressing his annoyance at the doubling of Air Passenger Duty (APD) in the Pre-Budget Report for passengers flying out of British airports.

From February 1, the levy rises from £5 to £10 for short-haul journeys in economy class and to as much as £80 for long-haul trips in first and business-class.

Mr Walsh said BA passengers would now be contributing "more than four times the cost of offsetting the CO2 emissions from the airline's entire worldwide fleet. We can legitimately claim to have done our bit. The Chancellor's got the money. The challenge is to get him to put his money where his mouth is."

He said APD was "just a revenue-raising measure with no direct environmental benefit", pointing out that, while it is levied on environmental grounds, it is used to support general public expenditure. He urged that at least £87m of this revenue should be ring-fenced for spending on emissions-reducing renewable projects in developing countries, thereby offsetting all the airline's emissions.

The sum is calculated as the cost of buying carbon credits to compensate for the 16m tonnes of CO2 emissions the airline causes annually from its passenger and cargo operations. The current going rate on carbon trading schemes is around €8 (£5.50) per tonne.

In his letter, he has asked the Chancellor whether he intends to drop APD when airlines join Europe's emissions trading scheme, due in 2011. "If he doesn't, we pay twice, it's a double whammy," he said. "Taxes are a blunt tool. People who fly with us and other airlines expect an answer." He is under no illusions over the importance of cutting airlines' environmental impact. "When people ask me what is the biggest challenge facing the industry, I say it is the environment."

BA has long lobbied to join Europe's emissions trading scheme, which he said gives airlines an incentive to reduce their environmental impact.

The airline had started a voluntary scheme in the run-up to 2011 where passengers could pay a sum, matched by BA, to offset emissions caused by their flight, with the typical cost for a short-haul journey about £5. Mr Walsh has told the Chancellor he is scrapping the scheme in protest at the doubling of APD.

He added there had been no consultation on the doubling of APD, which was effectively "a retrospective tax" on passengers who had already bought tickets for flights after February 1. BA has decided to pay the tax for such passengers, at a cost of £11m.

Mr Walsh was speaking in Calgary, Canada, where the airline has just launched a new five-weekly service from Heathrow.

Opponents of the proposed Heathrow expansion accused the government of undermining the fight against climate change yesterday as environmental campaigners warned of a massive increase in pollution if a third runway gets the go-ahead.

The government is expected to reaffirm plans on Thursday to expand one of the world's busiest airports. Airline executives have described the anticipated move as a "quid pro quo" for the increase in air passenger duty in last week's pre-budget report, triggering accusations of a government U-turn on environment policy from the green lobby yesterday.

Friends of the Earth pre-empted the announcement by warning that carbon dioxide emissions from Heathrow flights will rise by 40% if the runway is built by 2017. The project will allow 500 more daily flights from the airport, increasing its annual carbon output from an estimated 13.9m tonnes to 21m tonnes. Heathrow aircraft account for 2.3% of British carbon output, according to Friends of the Earth, representing nearly half the aviation industry's contribution.

Richard Dyer, aviation campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "If Heathrow is expanded, this airport alone is likely to be responsible for a large proportion of future UK carbon dioxide emissions. The government must abandon its policy of allowing a massive growth in air travel if it is serious about tackling climate change. This means scrapping plans to expand UK airports, including Heathrow."

The environmental warnings come after the chancellor, Gordon Brown, reiterated support for expanding Heathrow in the pre-budget report last week. The Department for Transport will outline the government's plans on Thursday when it publishes a progress report on its aviation industry white paper.

The case for Heathrow's expansion hinges on its importance to the British economy, which aviation executives say outweighs the negative environmental consequences. Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways, has warned that multinational companies would quit Britain if a third runway were delayed. According to a recent study by Oxford Economic Forecasting, a third runway would generate economic growth of £7bn per year, while implementing the original white paper proposals, which include new runways at Stansted and Birmingham, would generate £13bn per year.

A coalition of local authorities launched a group against the runway yesterday, comprising representatives from 12 London boroughs. The 2M group, which claims to represent the 2 million people who would be affected by the project, said ministers would be left "in no doubt about the scale of opposition to their plans".

Edward Lister, leader of Wandsworth council, south London, said: "The government talks the talk on the environment but does nothing to check the industry's insatiable desire for growth. As local government leaders we have a duty to speak up for our residents and defend their quality of life."

Meanwhile a delegation of airline representatives met Treasury officials yesterday to warn that the rise in air passenger duty will hit customers who have pre-booked flights that leave after February 1, when the increase kicks in. Airlines said the rise would add an estimated £100m to ticket prices.

The Government must respond to the Stern Review by scrapping plans to allow a huge expansion in UK airports when Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander publishes his progress report on the 2003 Aviation White Paper later this week (Thursday 14 December), says Friends of the Earth.

The Aviation White Paper supported airport expansion - including the building of four new runways - to accommodate a substantial growth in air travel, even though this would have a disastrous impact on efforts to substantially curb UK carbon dioxide emissions.

In October, the Treasury-commissioned Stern Review, the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change, was published. It warned that unless we take urgent action to tackle climate change, the environmental, human and economic costs will be huge. Friends of the Earth says that the Government must take action following the Stern Review to cut UK carbon dioxide emissions. Emissions have risen under Labour despite repeated promises of significant cuts.

In a letter published in The Times on Monday (11 December), the main opposition parties, and influential MPs, academics and environmental organisations called for an aviation policy rethink because ?the Government's policy of building four new runways to accommodate massive growth is short sighted and cannot be reconciled with tackling climate change and environmental protection?.

Friends of the Earth's aviation campaigner Richard Dyer said: ?The anticipated growth in air travel threatens to destroy Government plans to tackle climate change. Scientists predict that by 2050 aviation alone could be responsible for half of the UK's carbon dioxide target. We still have time to act. But it requires Government urgency. Douglas Alexander must review his department's disastrous aviation policies and scrap plans to expand UK airports.?

?Bringing aviation into an EU Emissions Trading Scheme is not a solution to the industry's impact on climate change. It will not happen for a number of years and is unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in the growth in air travel. There is a role for ETS, but we need other measures too to ensure that aviation plays its part in the development of a low-carbon economy.?

?Four fifths of all UK trips abroad are within Europe. Many of these destinations could easily be reached by rail. Governments and the travel industry must do more to boost investment in rail travel and make it easier and cheaper for people to use the train.?

A Friends of the Earth briefing on aviation and climate change can be found at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/alexanders_first_test.pdf

Aviation is the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide in the UK
Carbon emissions from UK aviation increased by 11 per cent in 2004 alone and are estimated to increase four fold between 2000 and 2050. Aviation emissions are estimated to have between two and four times the climate change impact of carbon emissions alone due to complex chemical reactions at altitude.

There is no prospect of a significant technological breakthrough that will reduce aircraft emissions. Gradual improvements might manage 1.2 per cent per year reduction in emissions . But this is inadequate to counter the current growth in passengers of 6.4 per cent per year.

Oxford University recently concluded that it will be impossible to meet the UK's 60 per cent carbon reduction by 2050 climate target without curbing aviation growth. Recent research by the respected Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research [8] found that a more ambitious 90 per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 - and around 70 per cent by 2030 - is necessary. Tyndall also warned that aviation could account for all of this target within 30 years.

Friends of the Earth is calling for the Government rethink aviation policy, including:
* Airport expansion plans to be cancelled;
* A further increase in Air Passenger Duty (APD) - there was a modest rise in last week's Pre Budget Report - and a commitment to increase it annually as an interim measure until other effective economic measures to reduce air travel growth and reduce emissions are available;
* Honesty and openness from the Government about the scale of the challenge and necessary solutions to enable the aviation industry and public to plan and adapt for the future.

Friends of the Earth's The Big Ask campaign
Through The Big Ask climate campaign, Friends of the Earth has led the call for a new law to tackle climate change and the need for it to require annual cuts in UK carbon dioxide emissions every year. The demand is supported by around two thirds of all MPs, all the main opposition parties and a wide coalition of organizations.

The Government has announced that a new climate change law will be introduced, and is currently consulting on the details of what it will contain. It must include aviation emissions and annual targets that will force successive governments to take serious action to tackle climate change, and to implement policies that will actually achieve them. (www.thebigask.com).

The Airportwatch Rethink! campaign
Friends of the Earth is also part of the Airportwatch coalition, which is calling for a fundamental rethink of aviation policy and not a mere progress report

The Review is available on the DfT website, www.dft.gov.uk. Briefly, the government policy is as before, but with rather more emphasis on the prospect that the environmental problems of an expanded Heathrow can be solved, and so plans for a third runway can go ahead.

However, a large part of the Report is devoted to explaining the measures that the government is taking to contain the effects of climate change, and admitting that no measures to date have been agreed on how to contain international aircraft emissions (domestic are included in the Kyoto agreement - these are expected to increase and presumably other sections of industry and society are expected to compensate for aviation's gluttony).

We are told that dealing with international emissions is firstly a matter for the ICAO, which has as yet produced no suggestions. This will not, it is implied, prevent the government from leading demands for aviation to be included in the EU carbon emissions trading scheme. The scheme is explained i.e. that those who have difficulties in reducing carbon emissions can buy allowances from those able to reduce quickly (no mention that aviation is never going to reduce emissions as long as flights are allowed to increase in number!).

In addition it is hoped that airlines will follow the government's example and allow their passengers to buy into schemes that offset carbon emissions, especially in the third world (how many trees for that weekend in Spain?). And airports are urged to calculate their carbon emissions ? though it is not clear whether this is to include flights as well (if so, Stansted please note).

The Oxford Economic Forecasting has reviewed its previous forecasts and, as might be expected, finds that the increase in flights to date is as forecast, therefore, future increases can therefore be confidently predicted as before. Once again the alleged economic benefits of a big expansion are listed out - they include people's aspirations to fly! Since the tourist balance of payments is well into the red this is a somewhat questionable inclusion.

So, the mixture as before, BUT a clear recognition that aviation's favoured position with regard to climate change has to be sanitised. The case for special treatment has not though been made. It is either ?pie in the sky? (the green aircraft) or, reliant on other sections of the economy subsidising aviation.

The Review still concedes that expanding airports plans must be approved by the planning system, must show that the economic benefits outweigh the environmental disbenefits, and environmental laws must not be breached.

So, BAA have still to make their case. So far they have failed to demonstrate that the further expansion of Stansted is essential to the local, regional or national economy. Only, more outgoing tourist flights, more noise, more pollution, more damage to Hatfield Forest, and more traffic congestion both on rail and road.

Pat Dale

So Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted seem likely to be split up. That must be the odds-on bet for BAA's three London airports, following the decision yesterday by the Office of Fair Trading to refer it to the Competition Commission. The OFT said it found evidence of poor quality and high charges, and that there was a need for more competition.

Most people who have to go through the London airports would probably agree. Monopoly is almost always bad news for customers. Going through any British airport these days (with the possible exception of Prestwick, where you are greeted like a long lost friend) is hardly a bundle of fun. But Heathrow does seem to have gone downhill since BAA was taken over by firm of Spanish builders, Ferrovial, last spring. And while it might seem a bit rough to break up the monopoly so soon after the business had been sold, the possibility of an OFT reference was made clear at the time. No one forced Ferrovial to buy BAA in the first place.

So at one level this is a story about an unloved monopoly being scrutinised by the regulators, with, I expect, the predictable ending. But it is also a story at two broader levels: what is to be done about air transport for London; and more broadly still, how can the booming South-east of England best cope with the pressures of growth?

The first thing to be said about the air transport network for London and the South-east is that it works remarkably well under the circumstances. The five London airports (BAA's three plus Luton and City) handled 130 million people last year, far more than any other place on the planet. That is 2 per cent of the world's population. Most large conurbations manage with two airports, maybe three. The fact that London has five spreads the load, particularly the travelling time to and from the airport for travellers and workers alike.

Heathrow is the most efficient airport in the world in terms of land use; Gatwick in terms of runway use. The UK pioneered railway access to airports, reducing congestion in the vicinity. No one pretends that the situation is ideal and there are showpiece airports elsewhere that make ours look scruffy. But the most admired ones are pretty dinky: Singapore and Munich handle fewer people than Gatwick. But we are dealing with a problem of success.

We then should have a thoughtful discussion about the best way to manage the growth of air transport. I personally don't feel too much sympathy with people who live near Heathrow. They chose to live there. Presumably they were aware there was an airport there when they moved in and that it might grow - though actually it has grown no more quickly that most airports. Much the same argument applies to Gatwick.

The case of Stansted is different because there was a sudden expansion, from which long-standing residents will have suffered. But the plain fact is that most home-owners in London and the South-east have benefited from economic growth, not least because of the value of their homes, and rising air transport is a key part of that growth. It creates jobs. And while having housing near such jobs may not be a recipe for peace and calm I did see an estimate that Heathrow workers had on average a shorter commute than workers at any other major airport.

None of this is to down-play the truth that we should seek to manage the environmental and other costs of air transport. I think there is huge scope for both carbon offsets and carbon trading to help us enjoy the benefits of growth without increasing the weight of our footprint.

But we do have to make travel nicer. That means a thoughtful, measured customer-centric response to demand rather than a shrill politicised one. We have to make it nicer for people going through airports and nicer for workers in them. We have to make the growth as kind to the environment as is practicable.

That leads to the wider issue of managing the conflicting pressures on the environment of London and the South-east. This is a huge issue: one that involves land use, patterns of home-building, what should happen to the Green Belt and so on. The starting point is to try to understand why there should be such pressure on one particular spot, and that is not easy. The population weight of the UK seems to be moving inexorably southwards by a mile or two a year, leading to ever-greater pressure on housing and the infrastructure. So what is to be done?

One response would be to try to push the growth back. That was certainly tried from the 1940s to the 1970s. Manufacturers were encouraged to set up distant plants, plants that subsequently closed. Government jobs were moved out of the South-east - still are being moved - with the effect of crowding out private-sector jobs in the areas they go to. But these policies have in general been unsuccessful. London and the South-east have tended to continue to outpace the rest of the UK both in terms of growth of output and population.

At the other extreme would be a hands-off policy, one that has been applied with success to some specific areas, such as London Docklands. Nothing is perfect but the development of Canary Wharf must already be one of the most successful examples of urban regeneration in the world. As more residential accommodation is built on its fringes, it will become a more balanced community too. It also has the effect of re-balancing the central London area, creating another central business district to rival the City and the West End. In another 50 years London will have become a true three-centre agglomeration.

Hands-off is not appropriate everywhere, so were the expression not so devalued there should be a search for a middle way. There are two possible models for this. One, which the Government seems to be heading towards after a wobbly start, is a loosening of existing planning within a specified framework. In other words there will be certain regions, such as the Thames Gateway, where expansion will take place. But the central government will decide broadly what forms that should take.

The alternative is competing local authorities. So you would for example encourage Croydon to use its proximity to Gatwick to try to become a focus for more up-market development. If one authority became overly restrictive, as the City did prior to Canary Wharf, then it would lose out. This model would fit in well with a break-up of BAA: it would be in each airport's interest to help the economy of its hinterland and vice versa.

The big point here is that growth invariably creates strain. But anyone who worries about this, as I think we all do, needs to recall what lack of growth does. Stagnation is not much fun either.

Airlines and travel groups on Wednesday attacked the doubling of air passenger duty, accusing the chancellor of imposing a ?poll tax on the skies? that would hurt ordinary travellers and be an ineffective way of tackling global warming.

Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer, said that all rates of air passenger duty (APD) would be doubled with effect from February 1 ?in recognition of the environmental costs of air travel.?

Tour operators demanded a meeting with the chancellor, saying his decision to introduce APD will cost the industry £20m because 4m holidays from February are already booked and increases in APD below 2 per cent are absorbed by the industry.

For short-haul travel within the European common aviation area the duty per departing passenger in the UK will be increased from £5 to £10 on economy fares and from £10 to £20 on business class fares. For long-haul flights the duty has been raised from £20 to £40 on economy fares and from £40 to £80 for business and first class fares.

Mr Brown said that the lowest rate of £10 would apply to more than 75 per cent of journeys. The increase in duty would secure extra resources for ?our priorities such as public transport and the environment.? The amount raised by APD will rise from £1bn to £2bn a year.

But British Airways and others attacked the move. BA called the increases "highly regrettable" and Martin Broughton, its chairman, warned there was a serious risk that airlines could become ?demonised? in the same way as tobacco companies and smoking.

BA said that air passenger duty was ?an extremely blunt instrument that provides the Treasury with extra funds for general public expenditure without any benefit to the environment whatsoever.? The increase in air passenger duty was ?revenue-raising pure and simple with aviation being treated as a cash-cow.?

The doubling in the flat-rate duty will have the biggest impact relatively on the lowest airlines.

EasyJet, the leading UK low cost airline, said that the doubling of air passenger duty on environmental grounds represented ?a complete U-turn of government policy.? In the aviation white paper three years ago the government said it recognised ?that because of its blunt nature air passenger duty is not the ideal measure for tackling the environmental impacts of aviation.?

The Federation of Tour Operators described the timing as ?a punitive windfall tax?, while First Choice, whose shares fell on Wednesday nearly 2 per cent, said it was already implementing its own environmental measures and should be exempt from the increase.

Gary Shiels, tax partner at PwC, said the narrow margins in the travel industry meant holidays would cost more than just the rise in air passenger duty. ?This will increase consolidation of the industry," he said.

Both airlines and travel groups called on the government to support the inclusion of the aviation industry in the EU emissions trading scheme.

Friends of the Earth, the environmental group, said the increase in duty was not sufficient to tackle aviation emissions.

Jeff Gazzard, spokesman for the GreenSkies Alliance environmental group, said the ?alarming? growth in aviation emissions from rising volumes of air travel would continue unless the government ?raises the duty again and again to reach an environmental target to either stabiliise or reduce greenhouse gases from air transport.?

OUR COMMENT: The green intentions expressed by some airlines have not lasted very long!

Pat Dale

A tax raid by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, on UK airlines has ruined a flagship government scheme to reduce the industry's carbon emissions.

British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and easyJet have pulled out of the scheme, put forward by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in protest at the doubling of air passenger duty, imposed by Mr Brown in his pre-Budget report last week.

Defra has been forced to cancel tomorrow's planned launch of a consultation for the scheme. A spokesman could not say when the plans would be resurrected.

The department wants to introduce a voluntary code for business, under which companies will offset their carbon emissions by investing in clean energy projects such as wind farms. The code would regulate businesses not covered by the European Emissions Trading Scheme - these could include retailers, for example, as well as airlines.

Officials raised the proposals last month and asked the Association of British Travel Agents to host tomorrow's launch alongside senior airline executives. The cancellation of the launch will trigger a furious row between Defra, headed by David Miliband, and the Treasury.

A few UK airlines had voiced reservations about Defra's plan before the pre-Budget report. A spokesman for one big carrier, who did not want to be named, complained that it was a "one-size-fits-all" code, and should have made allowances for the fact that it is harder to reduce an aeroplane's emissions than those of, for example, a shop.

But airlines - which do not pay fuel tax and are under pressure to participate in the European scheme - were still broadly supportive until the Chancellor pounced.

Mr Brown doubled the duty per passenger, raising it to £10 on economy-class, short-haul flights and £40 on long-haul flights. But the airlines, which were not consulted, say they cannot be expected to pay this tax, an estimated £1bn annually, as well as the cost of Defra's scheme.

An easyJet spokesman said: "We were looking to join up with Defra on this. But we are disappointed with the mixed signals we have had from the Government over the last few days."

It is understood that BA did not commit to the scheme, and has now decided to rule it out.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesman said: "We question the validity of such a scheme in the current atmosphere of higher taxation and the need to find technological solutions to reduce emissions."

A tax raid by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, on UK airlines has ruined a flagship government scheme to reduce the industry's carbon emissions.

British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and easyJet have pulled out of the scheme, put forward by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in protest at the doubling of air passenger duty, imposed by Mr Brown in his pre-Budget report last week.

Defra has been forced to cancel tomorrow's planned launch of a consultation for the scheme. A spokesman could not say when the plans would be resurrected.

The department wants to introduce a voluntary code for business, under which companies will offset their carbon emissions by investing in clean energy projects such as wind farms. The code would regulate businesses not covered by the European Emissions Trading Scheme - these could include retailers, for example, as well as airlines.

Officials raised the proposals last month and asked the Association of British Travel Agents to host tomorrow's launch alongside senior airline executives. The cancellation of the launch will trigger a furious row between Defra, headed by David Miliband, and the Treasury.

A few UK airlines had voiced reservations about Defra's plan before the pre-Budget report. A spokesman for one big carrier, who did not want to be named, complained that it was a "one-size-fits-all" code, and should have made allowances for the fact that it is harder to reduce an aeroplane's emissions than those of, for example, a shop.

But airlines - which do not pay fuel tax and are under pressure to participate in the European scheme - were still broadly supportive until the Chancellor pounced.

Mr Brown doubled the duty per passenger, raising it to £10 on economy-class, short-haul flights and £40 on long-haul flights. But the airlines, which were not consulted, say they cannot be expected to pay this tax, an estimated £1bn annually, as well as the cost of Defra's scheme.

An easyJet spokesman said: "We were looking to join up with Defra on this. But we are disappointed with the mixed signals we have had from the Government over the last few days."

It is understood that BA did not commit to the scheme, and has now decided to rule it out.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesman said: "We question the validity of such a scheme in the current atmosphere of higher taxation and the need to find technological solutions to reduce emissions."

The European commission's draft proposal to incorporate aviation in the EU emission trading scheme is "overly ambitious and self-defeating", British Airways has warned.  The comments, made this week by chairman Martin Broughton, reflect rising unease in the industry over parts of the plan.

BA and other airlines have supported bringing the sector into the ETS.  But they have insisted on a "simple" and "practical" scheme that would only apply to intra-EU flights. Antagonising non-European airlines could simply lead to delays in getting the sector into the ETS, BA argues.

In contrast, the commission is scheduled to announce on 20 December a directive including all aircraft taking off from or landing at EU airports in the ETS from 2011. The prospect has also generated criticism - including threats of legal action - from US officials. 

America wants its own airlines excluded from the scheme. BA also objects to the commission's plan to require many allowances for airlines to be auctioned rather than distributed free of charge.

 "There is no case for this kind of punitive discrimination against aviation, or for arbitrarily increasing European airlines' costs and weakening their competitive position against operators in the rest of the world," Mr Broughton said.

The draft proposal, seen by ENDS, recommends setting an EU-wide cap on aviation CO2 emissions at 2005 levels - more specifically the average of 2004-6.  It would be unrealistic to set a 1990 baseline since the sector's emissions have increased by 87% since then, it notes.

It recommends maintaining this cap for three consecutive trading periods: 2011-12 (the last two years of phase II of the ETS and of the Kyoto compliance period), 2013-17 and 2018-22.

An increasing proportion of allowances would be auctioned in each period - 10% rising to 20% and then to 40%.  In comparison, EU member states can auction UP TO 10% of allowances for industry in phase II of the ETS.

Airlines will be able to meet obligations by buying allowances from other airlines, other industries or the Kyoto flexible mechanisms.  Kyoto credits could be used up to a limit that is the average of limits set by member states in their plans for industry participants.

Those allowances distributed free will be handed out to airlines according to the number of tonne-kilometres they fly.  Should an airline end up with surplus allowances, it could only sell these to other airlines.

For the time being only CO2 emissions are being taken into account.  However, the draft suggests that airlines could be required to surrender up to twice as many allowances per tonne of CO2 emitted if laws to curb nitrogen oxide emissions are not implemented by 2010.

OUR COMMENT: So much for green aviation promises. Only those that are ineffective will be considered by the airlines. Clearly firm government action will be required. Perhaps the most effective would be to halt all airport expansion and tax aircraft emissions.

Pat Dale

Treasury officials, who commissioned Kate Barker's report into reform of the planning system, must have been delighted with some of the headlines that accompanied the report's publication last week. "Home improvements to be made easier", was one verdict; "Loft conversions and house extensions to be put on fast-track". At last, we are enticed into thinking, the Govern-ment has decided to get off our backs.

True, one of Miss Barker's proposals was that homeowners should no longer be required to submit formal planning applications if they could persuade their neighbours to approve their extensions. Whether this will mean much in practice is another matter: to judge by the bitter disputes over fences and leylandii hedges, neighbours will prove far harder to please than local authority officials. And in any case, homeowners will still be obliged to present their home improvements for inspection by local authority building control officers, even for the trifling business of replacing a window frame.

But if anyone does find it easier to build a conservatory as a result of the Barker proposals, it may well come at a price: less opportunity to object to a nuclear power station being built over the back fence. The Government's real purpose in seeking to streamline the planning system is not to make life a little easier for us but to make business a lot easier for itself.

In future, suggests the report, planning applications for large infrastructure projects should not go through local planning authorities: they should, instead, be processed by a new, centralised Planning Inspect-orate. Public inquiries should be shorter, subject to strict time limits and, most significantly of all, should not deal with the issue of whether, say, an airport is actually needed: that would already have been decided by central government when it drew up its innocent-sounding "statement of strategic objectives".

In other words, if you wake up to find plans for a new runway at the bottom of your garden, you will no longer be allowed to object on the grounds that expanding airports is somewhat contradictory to the Government's frequent warnings of climatic apocalypse unless we slash carbon emissions ? the case argued by Uttlesford District Council in refusing planning permission for expansion of Stansted airport.

In future, the right of you and your local councillors to object to a new airport will be limited to remarking on details of the plans, such as the colour of the boundary fence. More-over, not even your local MP will have a chance to object in Parlia-ment: the proposed Planning Inspectorate would decide on large infrastructure projects in private, obviat-ing the need for ministers to announce decisions in front of our elected representatives. Taking planning decisions out of the hands of ministers, argues Kate Barker, will "remove from the planning process any suggestion of bias or unfairness". Really? True, ministers are not above favouring businesses and individuals who have wined and dined them at Wimbledon or loaned them villas for their summer holidays; but at least their actions are very much in the open, making them liable to get caught out. What makes Miss Barker think that faceless quangocrats, invisible to the general public, are so incorruptible?

The Government has yet to respond to the Barker report. It says it will do so in a White Paper next year. But if I were the head of a construction company with a large corporate entertainment budget, I think I would be smacking my lips in anticipation of the opportunity to do more business behind closed doors and rather less in front of the pesky public.

THE decision to block expansion plans at Stansted Airport has been labelled a ?crass dismissal? of the need for economic development - potentially costing the region thousands of new jobs.

Uttlesford District Council has rejected an application to increase the number of passengers using the existing runway by ten million a year to 35 million. Its announcement came amid increasing concern about climate change and calls from environmental campaigners and local residents to resist expansion.

Airport operator BAA immediately announced it would appeal against the verdict and has now received the backing of GMB, Britain's general union, which said it was ?deeply disappointed and concerned?

Gary Pearce, regional organiser, claimed the extra passengers would have led to 3,000 new jobs in the area by 2014. He said: ?The UK needs extra air capacity in the south east if we are going to continue to create employment, tourism opportunities and build a successful UK economy. The Uttlesford district councillors have failed to understand the national significance of this application and have displayed a crass dismissal of the region's future labour requirements.?

But the council remains defiant and said it was disappointed at BAA's decision, saying it would stand by its decision and ?robustly? defend the appeal.

Council leader Mark Gayler said it had been vital to examine the application carefully and work in an ?open and transparent? way with the involvement of all interested parties.

He said: ?This brought us to a position where we were able to make a decision that will stand up to close scrutiny. We are therefore confident that we can defend our decision rigorously.?

An application to introduce a second runway at Stansted is ongoing, but campaigners believe this week's rejection could spell the end for the plan.

Campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) has called on BAA to ?do the decent thing? and respect the council's decision. It will launch an appeal today to raise £100,000 to challenge BAA at an expected public inquiry and more than £10,000 has already been pledged by members of the community.

The group claims for some people living in the shadow of the airport's flightpaths, the expansion plans could see more than 100 extra planes a day filling the skies.

Letter to the East Anglian Times, 6th December 2006

Sir, The GMB trade union should have considered the issues more carefully before condemning Uttlesford District Council's decision to refuse BAA's planning application for Stansted expansion ("Union angry at Stansted snub", EADT, 2 December).

Gary Pearce, regional organiser for the GMB is quoted as saying that the extra passengers would have led to 3,000 new jobs in the area by 2014. This is true but it is not a 'free lunch'. One man's new job at Stansted could be another man's redundancy notice in Suffolk.

Stansted's principal role is to transport millions of UK residents to spend their money overseas and last year the UK had a record £19bn balance of payments deficit on overseas tourism. This has spiralled - from just £2bn ten years ago - alongside the rapid growth in cheap leisure flights.

The result is that the streets of Prague and Budapest are teeming with British tourists whilst our own domestic tourism industry is struggling in many parts of the UK. When more and more people choose an overseas leisure break, jobs are lost in our own domestic tourism industry.

The tourism industry in the East of England provides 185,000 jobs many of which are in rural and coastal areas where alternative job opportunities are limited.

By contrast, Stansted currently provides 11,000 jobs and already cannot find enough people locally to fill the available vacancies. Increasingly, airport employers are having to turn to Central and Eastern Europe to find the employees they need.

In short, there is no strong economic or employment case for expanding Stansted and, from an environmental perspective, some very serious issues arise not least in the context of the need to tackle climate change.

Air travel is the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions and if Stansted were to expand as proposed by BAA, its annual emissions would increase from the equivalent of 7m tonnes of carbon dioxide at present to 12m tonnes. To put this into context, this is the same as is produced annually by 4 million average family cars.

If we ignore the issue of climate change or just assume that it is someone else's problem there will be far more than 3,000 jobs at risk. The East of England region is particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change.

Responsible trade unions such as the GMB should - like everyone else - be focused on addressing the issue of climate change. It is the priority which stands above all other priorities. It's even more important than being able to have your stag night in Prague for £20 return.

Uttlesford District Council should be commended for taking a stand.

Brian Ross
Economics Adviser to Stop Stansted Expansion
Takeley
Bishops Stortford

STANSTED Airport will be at the centre of a major debate following the refusal of an application to make maximum use of its current runway.

BAA has announced it is to appeal against the decision by Uttlesford District Council not to allow it to expand from the current 25 million passengers a year limit up to a maximum of 35 million.

And while people living near the airport regard this as a victory for the area in terms of noise and environment and nationally in terms of global warming and climate change, businesses in the Cambridge area claim refusal could put development of the region in jeopardy.

The airport already has permission for the infrastructure needed to cater for maximum use of the runway.

The application did not seek to change the night flight regime, extend the current airport boundary or involve any development relating to a second runway.

What it did hope to do was lift the current limit on air traffic movements to make full use of the single runway. The airport is fast reaching its maximum passenger limit and has estimated it will reach 35 million passengers a year by around 2014.

At present there are 11,500 people employed at the airport. It is estimated that in 2015, with maximum use of the runway, that figure would go up to 16,800.

In January, BAA will reveal the location of its proposed second runway, which will be followed by public consultation on road and rail access for a tworunway airport.

This would give Stansted a capacity of around 70 million passengers a year. The earliest date for the second runway to open would be 2013.

BAA claims that, by rejecting its application, Uttlesford has flown in the face of Government policy, which has called on all major South East airports to make full use of available capacity. It "firmly rejects" every single one of the council's reasons for refusal.

Meanwhile, John Bridge, chief executive of Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce, has called into question the whole planning process which allows relatively small district councils such as Uttlesford to make major decisions affecting a large part of the country.

Mr Bridge questioned the capability of councillors to decide such complex planning issues and their ability to remain unbiased when local government elections were due to take place in Uttlesford next May.

"Are they aware of the true economic implications of their decision?" he said. "Our competitors in the international market place must be rubbing their hands with glee. Here we are trumpeting about the Olympics in 2012 when we are not in the position to expand an international gateway."

Martin Garratt, director of The Greater Cambridge Partnership, warned that the growth of the area as one of the few high-tech centres could be put in jeopardy by freezing passenger numbers at Stansted.

The partnership operates within a 25-mile radius of Cambridge and represents businesses, statutory authorities, universities, the private sector and organisations such as the CBI.

Mr Garratt said services to America and the Far East from Stansted needed to be developed and there should be a balance between environmental issues and the need to ensure that high-tech companies were able to compete globally.

A spokeswoman for easyJet, one of the main lowcost carriers at Stansted, said that overall the airline supported expansion, but it needed to be done efficiently and with local and environmental considerations taken into account.

"The decision is in some ways positive because it generates a process which will take it to the next level and the Government will look in detail at the airport's plans," she said.

Uttlesford district councillor Alan Dean, who represents Stansted and addressed the planning committee, said the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Changehad raised the debate about global warming.

"According to many experts, unconstrained growth in aviation threatens to undo all other attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emission and to minimise climate change," he said.

"Full use of the single runway at Stansted would contribute about half the domestic carbon emission from all of us living in the East of England."

Sir Alan Haselhurst, MP for Saffron Walden, said: "This is far from the end of the story. There will be a public inquiry. Will an independent inspector be brave enough to uphold the council's decision? What would the Secretary of State do? There is a daunting hill to climb. Uttlesford has produced a trip wire for BAA."

Sir Alan also referred to the likelihood of an inquiry into BAA's monopoly position in terms of ownership of London's three main airports - Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow.

Stop Stansted Expansion has launched an appeal to raise £100,000 to challenge BAA at the public inquiry. More than £10,000 has already been pledged by members of the community, but the pressure group needs the £100,000 as soon an as possible to enable it to commission specialists to challenge BAA.

Brian Ross, economics adviser to Stop Stansted Expansion, said: "BAA's own forecasts show that expanding Stansted from 25 to 35 million passengers a year would result in only an extra 0.3 million business passengers and the number of foreign business visitors actually declines if the expansion is approved.

"Stansted is, of course, predominantly a leisure airport providing cheap flights to Europe. You cannot fly from Stansted to Brussels, Frankfurt or Paris - three of Europe's leading business cities - but you can fly every day of the week to Tenerife and Torremolinos."

Mr Ross said cheap flights had resulted in Britain's own tourism industry struggling to make ends meet.

The inquiry is expected to start in the spring of next year and will last for around four to five months. It is likely to be 2008 before the outcome is known.

The case for refusal: Uttlesford District Council

THE council argued BAA had understated the impact of air noise on communities and more information was needed from the Government on how much demand it envisaged at Stansted.

It added the economic benefits of an expanded airport were not shown to outweigh all other factors.

Expansion could lead to congested roads around the airport and proposed rail access improvements were not sufficiently clear to ensure they would take place at the appropriate time. The council also cited increasing evidence of the adverse effects of climate change which would make it premature to grant planning permission in advance of Government response to research in the Stern Review.

The case for an appeal: BAA

BAA said the application was based on the latest national planning policy in The Future of Air Transport. The application was also in accordance with the adopted Uttlesford structural and local plans.

BAA said the council had not discussed with them ways to counteract the negative impact of the scheme. It claimed none of the reasons for refusal properly justified preventing further growth in passenger numbers.

The refusal of the application on grounds relating to climate change and the Stern Review was "incoherent". Nothing in the Stern Review could lead the council to believe a halt should be called on further growth.

OUR COMMENT: If Stansted expansion is so vital for business in the region, why don't more business travellers use the services provided? The majority of the passengers are travelling for recreational reasons. And, why has the permitted number of freight flights not been used up?

Pat Dale

THE Office of Fair Trading is poised to refer BAA to the Competition Commission, a move that could herald the end of the monopoly ownership of London's main airports.

Aviation-industry sources said last night the OFT, which has been examining airport ownership since the shock announcement of an inquiry in June, was expected to deliver its verdict within the next fortnight. Some think it could come as soon as this week.

The sources said it was not certain that the OFT would ask for the Competition Commission to undertake an inquiry, but that was the most likely outcome. ?We are not planning for any other eventuality,? one said.

A referral could bring an end to BAA's long-standing ownership of the three largest airports serving the capital, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

It has owned and operated the trio since it was privatised as the British Airports Authority in 1987.

Having been quoted on the stock market for 19 years, BAA went private this year in a £10.3 billion takeover led by the Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial.

A break-up is unlikely to come overnight. If a Competition Commission inquiry is ordered, it will take up to two years to complete.

BAA executives say that even if there is a referral, they will fight to preserve the monopoly. Earlier this year Stephen Nelson, promoted to be BAA's chief executive after the Ferrovial takeover, said a break-up would be ?a poisonous cocktail for consumers?, leading to less investment in new runway capacity and terminals.

But BAA's airline customers have pushed hard for a full Competition Commission investigation.

Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive, cited ?poor performance? by BAA, and said the two airports earmarked for expansion by the government, Stansted and Heathrow, should not be owned by the same company.

The airlines' mood was not improved by the security chaos at UK airports over the summer caused by the uncovering of an alleged terrorist bomb plot. Airlines blamed BAA for some of the problems.

Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, has been an even harsher critic of BAA, claiming its management of the London airports has deteriorated since the takeover by Ferrovial.

City sources believe Ferrovial won't be unduly worried about a break-up.

?There is a strong argument for there being greater value for them if they are forced to sell one or more of the airports. They would keep Heathrow, which is the cash cow, and dispense with Gatwick or Stansted,? one banker said.

If the OFT does act this week, it will spark a regulatory logjam for the airports company.

On Tuesday, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will release its provisional findings on BAA's landing charges from April 2008. It is expected to recommend a signficant reduction in the amount BAA earns by reducing its allowed cost of capital.

The CAA announcement will trigger a separate referral to the Competition Commission on the narrow issue of airport charges.

Meanwhile, BAA and major airlines will this week release a report by consultants Oxford Economic Forecasting that will highlight the importance of the aviation industry to the UK economy.

The report is expected to stress aviation's role in promoting UK productivity, and will be seen as a counter to lobbying efforts by environmentalists to curb the growth of the industry.

LONDON (AFX) - British Airways PLC hit out on Tuesday at plans by the Civil Aviation Authority to allow airport operator BAA to hike charges at its UK airports.

BA said it was 'extremely disappointed' that the CAA is proposing to allow BAA, which is owned by Spanish construction firm Grupo Ferrovial SA, to raise charges at London's Heathrow airport by RPI inflation plus 4-8 pct each year between 2008 and 2013, against the current level of RPI-plus 6.5 pct.

The CAA is also proposing to eliminate the cap on prices charged to airlines by London Stansted and to cap Gatwick's prices at RPI inflation plus or minus 2 pct, compared to the current rate of RPI plus 0 pct.

BA said airport charges were increasing by 50 pct during the current five year charging period, although passengers had yet to see improved facilities and services. It said it believed charges should increase no faster than inflation during the next five years.

BA's general manager of airport policy, Paul Ellis, said: 'To advocate another 50 pct rise over the next five years cannot be justified. 'Passengers deserve world class facilities and excellent service levels without a further hike in charges.'

The CAA also proposed a lower cost of capital at 6.2 pct and a 1 pct annual operating efficiency improvement in the review of price controls for UK regulated airports owned by BAA.

BA said it believed BAA could make the infrastructure investment needed at Heathrow with a cost of capital of 5.6 pct and that the operating efficiency target was not challenging enough.

The airline said it would continue to lobby the CAA and the Competition Commission during the consultation on airport charges in the next 12 months.

Former BA chief looks to MPC as planning mode
Road-pricing scheme 'only way to ease congestion'

Ministers will be stripped of the power to approve major transport projects such as a third runway at Heathrow airport under sweeping reforms proposed yesterday by a government-commissioned report.

Sir Rod Eddington, the former chief executive of British Airways, warned in a major report on Britain's transport needs that the current planning regime was "a recipe for paralysis" and should be replaced by an independent planning commission. The new body would have the final say on airport expansions, major road construction and new rail links. That power currently resides with ministers.

Sir Rod, whose findings have been welcomed by the government, said the planning commission would be similar to the Bank of England monetary policy committee, which is independent of the Treasury and sets UK interest rates.

He said: "A change of government might lead to new thinking on financial matters in political circles but the MPC ensures that it does not change the way the Bank of England acts." He said the new planning commission would be "just as democratic".

'Recipe for paralysis'

"It puts the ministers in the right place -at the beginning of the process. The current system is a recipe for paralysis," Sir Rod said, citing 37 separate planning applications for Heathrow terminal 5.

His comments came in the same week that Uttlesford district council refused planning permission for an expansion of Stansted airport, triggering a public inquiry whose conclusions will be accepted or rejected by a minister.

Elsewhere in the report, Sir Rod ruled out a root-and-branch overhaul of the transport network, which he said had "the right connections, in the right places". But he said sustained investment would have to be made in key areas to prevent congestion on roads, railways and runways damaging the economy.

"The transport links we have are sufficient but we need to improve the capacity of key links," he said. Sir Rod strongly favours a nationwide road-pricing scheme that would charge drivers about £1.28 a mile (80p a kilometre) at peak times. He also argues in favour of more roads and a third runway at Heathrow.

The proposals were immediately criticised by the environmental lobby yesterday. Stephen Glaister, professor of transport at Imperial College and an adviser to the report, warned that road pricing would fail unless the public were persuaded of its benefits. Local authorities must be allowed to reinvest the proceeds in local infrastructure, as with the London congestion charge, he said.

"Unless you get the trust issue sorted out nothing is going to happen. Road pricing will not happen unless it's absolutely clear that the money is kept for local purposes and overseen by a local body. That is what we have in London," said Professor Glaister.

Convincing the public

Sir Rod said considerable work was needed to win over the public, which could mean a national road-pricing system would take a decade. But he warned that road pricing had to happen because extra roads alone would not cope with traffic growth: traffic on motorways and inter-urban A roads in England is expected to rise by at least 40% by 2015, according to the Department for Transport.

Sir Rod said: "There is no alternative to road pricing. Some 80% of the journeys that take place in the UK are by car. We cannot build roads quickly enough to cope with the amount of cars in use."

The government has already revealed plans for road-pricing schemes, and a road transport bill will give local authorities greater powers to introduce them, with Manchester and Birmingham among the cities preparing to charge drivers. Plans range from the London-style congestion charge to a sophisticated pay-as-you-drive scheme that bills drivers according to their route, length of journey and time of day.

Malcolm Taylor, a director at the engineering company Faber Maunsell, said the report contained "nothing new" on road pricing and criticised its failure to endorse a high-speed London-Glasgow rail link. He said: "Rail is the only serious contender to the environmentally unfriendly short-haul air market. But ambitious rail schemes will take 20 to 30 years to build ... this appears to be yet another review that's a lost opportunity."

Tom Winsor, the former rail regulator, said: "I have real doubts whether ministers will put the resources into transport that this document recommends."

Explainer: Government study

The Eddington transport study makes five key points. The first is to improve the capacity and performance of the existing transport network rather than pour billions of pounds into massive projects. It says the infrastructure is in place but is becoming too congested.

The second recommendation is to invest in areas that are vital to the British economy but where transport links are overused and congested: cities, motorways and railways between urban areas, ports and airports. For instance, a national road-pricing scheme could bring benefits of up to £25bn a year by 2025.

The third point reflects Sir Rod's background as a FTSE chief executive: invest where demand for transport infrastructure is strong and where further growth is predicted, with the expectation that building extra capacity will generate more jobs and business activity.

The fourth recommendation is to shake up local government control of transport and overhaul the planning system.

Finally, the report says the government must ensure the right delivery system is in place to support a new transport policy.

Underpinning this is a commitment to countering transport's contribution to carbon emissions. Sir Rod says all forms of transport should meet their environmental costs.

The Barker report into changing England's planning laws has recommended the creation of a new national body to decide on major building projects, such as airports.

Opponents of airport expansion say such a move would mean local communities would have less of a say than they presently do, but supporters believe a speedier planning process will benefit the economy.

BRIAN ROSS, Member of the Stop Stansted Expansion campaign, commented:

It is very clear from Kate Barker's many criticisms of the current planning system that she is heading in the same direction as last week's Eddington report which called for a streamlining of our planning system - essentially to make it easier or quicker for developers to get approval for their projects.

Both Barker and Eddington try to provide assurance that democratic accountability and public participation will need to be maintained - but it is clear from reading Barker and Eddington that they envisage a more centralised and far less democratic and participative approach overseen by some new quango, an unelected Planning Commission.

It's a blatant attempt to marginalise the input into planning decisions from local community groups The government has commissioned these two reviews and it will now use them as justification for new planning legislation, probably in 2008-9, following a white paper next year.

The purpose of the legislation will be to make it easier for the government to deliver its controversial airport and housing policies in the face of widespread local opposition.

Our advice: If it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially since the government hasn't even given the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act time to settle down.

KEITH JOWETT, Chief executive of the Airport Operators Association:

Clearly the UK has historically been burdened with a planning regime that can take a very, very long time to address some important national issues, so speeding those up is important.

In all the years since the last world war, only one new full length runway has been built in the UK, at Manchester, whereas three runways have been built at Paris Charles de Gaulle in the last generation.

The growth of aviation and the economies that depend on them, has been vastly helped on the continent compared to here, and we are losing ground very rapidly.

It is vitally important that the local community be engaged in the details of planning proposals, and there is a national interest that has to be considered that will have a local impact.

It's not just the airports, it's the economies like London's which are losing out That local impact is important, but it shouldn't stop the national requirement proceeding, in an appropriate fashion.

There were earlier proposals from this government some years back which gave us some concern, as in some cases they completely removed the local consultation process, and we wouldn't want to see that.

Airports like Heathrow, have been at maximum capacity for many, many years already. They have lost a huge amount of ground to continental competition. And it's not just the airports, it's the economies like London's, which are losing out.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) today published its initial price control proposals for Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted for the period 2008-13. In response, Stephen Nelson, BAA Chief Executive Officer, said, ?Taken at face value, the incentives in this opening proposal are unsatisfactory and give cause for significant concern. Uncertainty over incentives, coming at time when we face a number of major investment decisions, may directly affect the quality of the passenger experience for years to come.

?We have plans to invest £9.5 billion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted over the next 10 years to deliver new airport facilities that will result in much needed improvements for passengers travelling through our airports. We are already transforming Heathrow with our £4.2bn Terminal 5 project which will open in March 2008. But long term investment on this scale requires a consistent and supportive regulatory framework. In our view, the initial price control proposals contain an unprecedented and negative shift in this framework that could be interpreted as a reversal of the CAA's previous policies in this area.?

Commenting on the CAA's recommendation to de-designate Stansted, Stephen Nelson said: ?We are reserving our judgement on this recommendation until we have had the chance to review it alongside the OFT's study of the UK airport market.?

Commons environmental audit committee expressed doubt that the government "appreciates the magnitude and urgency" of cutting CO2 emissions.

It has been looking into government policy in this area and published a report on its findings on Monday.

The committee said it was concerned about the Department for Transport's reliance on CO2 projections for 2050 as evidence that its policies are on the right track.

The report calls for more investment for emerging technologies such as carbon-capture and storage, off-shore wind and cuts in council tax and stamp duty for homes built to "high environmental standards".

And in an open letter to Gordon Brown, the committee's chairman, Tim Yeo, urged the chancellor to increase environmental and transport taxes, encourage incentives to promote greater fuel and carbon efficiency in cars and to raise taxes for air travel.

Yeo said: "The Department claims that its policies are on the right track - but its own projections of future carbon emissions suggest that CO2 from transport will be no lower in 2050 than in 1990. This contrasts with the government's targets for the UK as a whole to make carbon cuts of at least 60 per cent from 1990 levels by mid-century. This is precisely the lack of ambition, the sense of entitlement owing to transport as a special case, that we highlighted throughout our report."

"We wonder whether DfT truly appreciates the magnitude and urgency of this issue, no matter the array of climate change policies it can point to."

Yeo also raised questions over the government's plans to expand airport capacity. "On aviation, the government deserves praise for its efforts towards including the aviation sector in the EU emissions trading scheme," Yeo said.

"But we are concerned that the department has rejected our recommendation that it embark on a fundamental rethink of its airport expansion policy. We remain to be convinced, for instance, that the government's decision that there should "only" be two extra runways in the South East rather than three really is proof that it is has a sustainable aviation policy."

"Whether even these runways are ever built in practice is perhaps another matter," he added.

US Democrats want to emphasise climate change in Congress
The issue of climate change and global warming hardly registered on the political radar in the United States during the recent Congressional elections.

On 7 November however, the Democratic Party secured both houses of Congress and that political shift is likely to mean a change of emphasis over key environmental issues.

The US is the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter but the country has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that sets limits on those gases.

Instead President George W Bush has emphasised the need for innovations that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

"America is addicted to oil," he said in this year's State of the Union address. "Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy, the best way to break this addiction is through technology."

Democratic hope

Now that the Democratic Party has taken control of both houses of Congress there is hope amongst senior Democrats that they will be able convince the president that caps on greenhouse gases are needed as well.

"We have an opportunity to put an emphasis on issues of clean energy, renewable energy, global warming, climate change, in a way that wasn't possible during the last several years," says the incoming Democratic Party head of the Senate energy committee, Jeff Bingaman.

President Bush says America is addicted to oil

Mr Bingaman supports set federal limits on greenhouse gases. He recently co-authored a letter to President Bush urging him to work with the Democrats to develop solutions to the global warming problem.

As in other areas of legislation, the Democrats are emphasising bi-partisanship. That is a necessity, rather than a sign of magnanimity.

There are still enough Republicans in the Senate to filibuster legislation - basically talk until it runs out of time for a vote, and if that does not happen the president can still wield his veto.

"If you stake out an extreme position you'll pass nothing," says Raymond Kopp, an analyst at Resources for the Future, a environmental think-tank.

"The Democrats have got to put in place sound policy, start it slow and give it a chance to ramp up over time."

Evangelical environmentalists

The Democratic Party's electoral victory has given it momentum over the issue of climate change and that is being bolstered because of the growing support of evangelical Christians - a group usually more closely allied to the Republican Party.

The Reverend Jim Ball is part of a new coalition of evangelical churches in favour of more stringent legislation to combat global warming being mooted by the Democrats.

Their starting position is that the poor are going to be most affected by global warming, so it is a Christian duty to do something about it.

But Mr Ball recognises that "we're not yet at Congressional Nirvana. Many democrats come from coal states and oil and gas states. So this issue isn't just a Republican versus Democrat issue".

He is right to be cautious.

The US is the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter
There are still large numbers of people who are sceptical about the significance of climate change.

A recent poll carried out by the Pew Research Center in Washington suggested that only two out of five Americans think global warming is caused by human activity and only one in five were personally worried by climate change.

People in 15 countries, rich and poor, were asked that question. Concern in the US was the lowest of them all.

If there is ambivalence amongst the public about global warming, there is outright scepticism from some groups.

"There's a lot of global warming hysteria out there," says Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"The facts are that the earth hasn't been warming up very quickly, that the predictions of coming catastrophe over-estimate the amount of warming that is likely to occur."

Supreme Court case

So for Mr Ebell, with the prospect of emission cap legislation, these should be dark days.

Well - only up to a point. He is optimistic that the Democrats will in fact achieve very little.

Concern over global warming ranks low in US polls

"We've already heard that the Democrats are going to have lengthy Congressional hearings into global warming," says Mr Ebell.

"There'll be a great deal of rhetoric and that will gain them a lot of support in suburban constituencies, but in terms of passing major environmental legislation I don't see them going anywhere."

Whatever legislation comes, it will be incremental.

Public opinion is divided on global warming. It is not driving the politicians forward at breakneck speed.

It could in fact be the courts that give the issue added impetus.

The US Supreme Court has just begun hearing arguments over whether the government should regulate certain greenhouse gas emissions.

The case is limited to whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate vehicle emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

Lawyers for the state bringing the case, Massachusetts, argue that the EPA has to apply the law and use its authority to address global warming. Environmentalists hope a ruling in their favour would force changes in the policies of President Bush's administration.

Passengers face long queues and travel chaos at Stansted Airport this Christmas ? with Ryanair and BAA locked in a bitter battle over who is to blame.

The airport expects to cater for a record number of passengers between Christmas and the New Year ? in excess of the 500,000 that travelled last year.

And while Ryanair claims BAA is threatening to ruin Christmas because it has not provided enough security staff, the airport has hit back saying Ryanair is failing to cooperate.

Ryanair's head of communications, Peter Sherrard, said he had been warned by BAA that there could be long queues at the airport this Christmas because of security problems.

He claimed that BAA had had 4 months to recruit staff and eliminate airport queues and added: ?Why have all of the UK's other airports returned to normality since August while BAA is still failing to provide satisfactory service for passengers?.

?The BAA airport monopoly has confirmed that it takes just two weeks to train security staff and with 700 security staff already in place for 14 security check points in Stansted, there is no excuse for the travel chaos BAA's complacency will inflict on thousands of passengers this Christmas.?

A spokesman for Stansted airport said: ?It is about time Ryanair stopped mischief making and worked with us to find a solution. ?Recruiting, training and screening security staff takes 6 weeks.

?This blame game does not help the passengers. Our top priority is to make sure they are safe and secure. We have asked Ryanair to open check-in desks earlier but they won't change their processes. Ryanair is not helping us at all. They are not adapting, they are acting as if nothing has happened, whereas easyJet has been cooperative and is opening check-in desks earlier.?

The spokesman urged all passengers to check the BAA and individual airline websites before travelling to ensure they knew the latest regulations concerning hand baggage. Passengers should also arrive at the airport two to three hours before their flight.

OUR COMMENT: Why Fly?

Pat Dale

In medieval Essex, the hundred of Uttlesford was a quiet part of the countryside famous for producing fine wool and saffron stems. But the crocus flowers that supplied the saffron have given way to a new employer, Stansted airport. It has been growing fast on the back of the low-cost flying boom and has applied for planning permission to expand passenger traffic by 40%, even before a second runway is built.

Yesterday, Uttlesford District Council, responsible for planning permission at Stansted, took a stand, At a meeting, councillors voted against allowing expansion. No small council has ever tackled a decision as big as this with such ingenuity. It launched a website on the issue to inform and mobilise residents and cleverly turned local objections into a national; issue by pointing out the gap between government rhetoric on the environment and its support for bigger and busier airports. It even has had the cheek to ask ministers to consider whether the recent Stern report on climate change means they should think again about the rise in air passenger numbers.

Some of this may be dismissed as a smart form of nimbyism. Uttlesford residents, who were named this year as the most polluting in Britain in terms of carbon emissions, certainly need to put their own houses in order. But the council is doing its job, reflecting concerns and challenging government to explain a confused policy. In the end, Whitehall may over-rule the council's decision by public inquiry. But local democracy will have had its say.

OUR COMMENT: Local democracy wants more than ?its say?! It wants the government to follow a firm, fair and logical climate change policy. Terry Morgan, BAA Stansted's chief executive, when interviewed on channel 4 television news, admitted the double standards of the present policies. When asked how he justified expansion in view of the urgent need to take action to reduce carbon emissions he responded by repeating BAA's oft-claimed support for the inclusion of aviation in the EU carbon emissions trading scheme. When asked how that would prevent emissions from increasing with thousands of extra flights, he pointed out that the government would be allowing aviation extra allowances of carbon which would be compensated for by others making further reductions.

This is the inevitable result of the present government's policy. To achieve reductions, and at the same time increase the number of flights, one or more sections of our society will have to take even tougher measures to compensate. Is this fair? Are more and more recreational flights a sufficient justification? We can assure the Guardian that local residents are very busy reducing their own domestic emissions! Uttlesford Council now has its own specialist energy adviser.

Pat Dale

BAA and Uttlesford District Council locked horns yesterday as councillor's unanimous refusal of permission to increase flights on the existing runway at Stansted was greeted by tears and cheers.

BAA Stansted managing director Terry Morgan accused the authority of flying in the face of government policy and against the interests of leisure and business travellers, who saw the airport as an affordable gateway to worldwide destinations.

He said after the meeting: "We intend to immediately appeal against this decision and will take our case to a public inquiry. No-one should be in any doubt that we remain very confident of the case we have made and this will be fully recognised at the inquiry.

"This application is all about growth on the existing runway at Stansted, it has nothing to do with our plans for a second runway. That will be a separate planning application next year. Having said that, we are disappointed Uttlesford District Council has been unable to support our application".

BAA wants up to 35 m travellers a year to pass through the terminal – 11.5 more than at present – and passenger flight numbers to rise from 241,000 to 264,000 a year. Uttlesford District Council planning officers deemed the plans "unacceptable" on several grounds, including environmental and noise issues.

At yesterday's extraordinary meeting of the development control committee, Councillor Richard Harris said the area was suffering enough already from aircraft noise and light and air pollution and accused Stansted of being home to a "live now, pay as little as possible" culture.

Councillor Alan Thawley, referring to the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, said: "All the scientific arguments since the 1960s have shown a global catastrophe is about to happen, and its coming very, very close. It takes an economic report to focus minds that there has been a problem growing all that time as the result of a very crass society."

Councillor Jackie Cheetham, who represents Takeley, said granting permission would only increase problems her constituency was already suffering. "Because of the threat of airport expansion this village is starting to lose its heart and soul and identity".

Afterwards SSE chairman, Peter Sanders, pledged the campaign group's support to Uttlesford for the inquiry. "This should assist the UDC in minimising the cost burden while also sharing technical expertise to strengthen its case".

CBI regional director Richard Tunnicliffe said airport growth was key to the region's continued prosperity and competitiveness.

The trend towards increased energy efficiency is levelling off.

The rise in humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated sharply, according to a new analysis.

The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year.

It says the acceleration comes mainly from a rise in charcoal consumption and a lack of new energy efficiency gains.

The global research network released its latest analysis at a scientific meeting in Australia.

Dr Mike Rapauch of the the Australian government's research organisation CSIRO, who co-chairs the Global Carbon Project, told delegates that 7.9 billion tonnes (gigatonnes, Gt) of carbon passed into the atmosphere last year; in 2000, the figure was 6.8Gt.

Improvements made in the last 30 years appear to be stalling

Corinne Le Quere: "From 2000 to 2005, the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions was more than 2.5% per year, whereas in the 1990s it was less than 1% per year," he said.

The finding parallels figures released earlier this month by the World Meterorological Organisation showing that the rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 had accelerated in the last few years.

Intense findings

The Global Carbon Project draws its data from a wide range of sources, including measurements of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and studies on fossil fuel use.

From that data, researchers have extracted two trends which they believe explain the sharp upturn found around the year 2000.

The assumption is we will solve the problem by controlling demand; but regulating at the point of use is clearly not working

"There has been a change in the trend regarding fossil fuel intensity, which is basically the amount of carbon you need to burn for a given unit of wealth," explained Corinne Le Quere, a Global Carbon Project member who holds posts at the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey.

"From about 1970 the intensity decreased - we became more efficient at using energy - but we've been getting slightly worse since the year 2000," she told the BBC News website.

"The other trend is that as oil becomes more expensive, we're seeing a switch from oil burning to charcoal which is more polluting in terms of carbon."

The Project does not have data on precisely where this is happening, but there is anecdotal evidence of increases in charcoal burning in parts of Asia and Africa.

There have been suggestions that as temperatures rise, carbon sinks - natural systems which absorb carbon dioxide - may become less efficient; but Professor Le Quere said there is no evidence that this is happening systematically.

"The land sink has been very much affected by recent droughts, especially in the northern hemisphere," she said, "but the ocean sink looks relatively stable and it doesn't seem there is a global trend."

Upper limits

How emissions will change over time is one of the factors considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body responsible for collating and analysing climate data for the global community.

Australia under John Howard is increasing coal exports.
"At these rates, it certainly sounds like we'll end up towards the high end of the emission scenarios considered by the IPCC," commented Myles Allen from Oxford University, one of Britain's leading climate modellers.

The "high end" of IPCC projections implies a rise in global temperature approaching 5.8C between 1990 and the end of this century.

"We need to think about radical alternatives to the belt-tightening approach," said Professor Allen. "At the moment the assumption is we will solve the problem by controlling demand; but regulating at the point of use is clearly not working."

At the recent United Nations climate summit in Nairobi, a number of delegations, including those of Britain, Australia and the US, pointed out that they had managed to grow their economies without significant increases in carbon emissions.

But, said Corinne Le Quere, the latest data shows this approach will not be enough to curb emissions in the future. "Improvements that have been made in the last 30 years appear to be stalling," she said. "We are going to need a real decrease in emissions."

The European commission has demanded that member states set much tougher caps on carbon emissions in their national allocation plans for the second phase of the EU's emission trading scheme. In decisions taken on ten plans (Naps) on Wednesday the commission called for an average cut in emissions of seven per cent compared to draft Naps submitted by governments (see separate article, this issue).

"Today's decisions send a strong signal that Europe is fully committed to achieving the Kyoto target and making the trading scheme (ETS) a success", environment commissioner Stavros Dimas said. The commission has the right to veto Naps it believes are too generous to industry.

Carbon market analyst Point Carbon said the commission's strictness went "way beyond" what they had expected. "It is obvious that the commission has done its utmost this time to avoid in the second phase a repeat of the failures of the first phase," said Henrik Hasselknippe of Point Carbon's ETS unit.

Environmental NGOs welcomed the commission's decision to lower emission quotas, though some said the decision was still not strict enough. They also criticised the commission for not demanding enough changes to the way allowances are allocated.

In its original guidance on second-phase Naps the commission recommended a six per cent cut across the EU relative to emissions in the first phase. Nevertheless, Mr Dimas recently said 17 Naps proposed emission caps about 15 per cent above 2005 emissions This suggests the 15 remaining member states could face e