MEP says air travel growth must be checked

Date published: 05/07/2006

Rochdale MEP Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesmen in the European Parliament, has described the growth in cheap air travel as an EU success story that risks damaging consequences.
 
"By breaking up national airline monopolies we have created great opportunities for the comfortably-off to travel, but the rate of growth threatens to wipe out all the CO2 savings made elsewhere.  One major UK operator tells me that they expect a 60% growth in passenger numbers over the next six years alone.
 
"We don't want to stop air travel.  We simply want to ensure that its growth is not at the expense of future generations and the poor across the world. 
 
"Our message is that airline operations can continue to expand, but only as fast as improvements in technology and better operating practices permit.  Total carbon dioxide emissions must increase no further."

MEPs have warned that the accelerating growth in air travel threatens to undermine Europe's attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 
The European Parliament has called for urgent action to force airline operators to pay towards the carbon dioxide emissions their planes emit.
 
MEPs want the European Commission to set up a new emissions trading scheme specifically for the aviation sector.  Inclusion within the existing scheme, they argue, would increase the costs of industry while effectively subsidising holiday travel.
 
Air transport contributes just 4% of current CO2 emissions but the volume has grown by 85% since 1990.  There are also fears that emissions from aircraft at great height may affect cloud formation in the stratosphere, magnifying the global warming effects.
 
The measures being proposed by MEPs would be expected to increase average flight costs by less than £10 but would reward operators who invested in the most up to date technology.

Chris Davies is also calling for the European Parliament to follow its own advice by curbing the use of air transport by its members.
 
European MPs are amongst the greatest users of aircraft, with many MEPs making in excess of 100 flights a year, mostly just in travelling between their constituencies and the Parliament's premises in Brussels and Strasbourg.
 
He said: "We can hardly preach to others about the need to curb the growth in air travel if we do not address our own faults.  Perhaps an emissions trading scheme of our own would encourage good practice and penalise the bad."
 
The MEP suggests that a simple change in the Parliament's working arrangements, and the introduction of a meetings schedule based on "two weeks in Brussels, one week in the constituency", could cut air flights by a third.