Building a new runway at Heathrow will make it harder to solve the problems of air pollution and climate change emissions which the UK already faces, environmentalists have warned.
The Government has been ordered by the Supreme Court to urgently produce a plan to improve poor air quality in the UK, which causes thousands of premature deaths and disease a year, to meet European Union legal limits.
In the report backing a third runway at Heathrow, Sir Howard Davies warns that without action to tackle air quality, expansion could create pollution levels in 2030 that meant the UK was breaching the law.
But the report said measures such as improved public transport, and nitrogen oxides emissions charging, to encourage aeroplanes to switch off an engine when taxiing, could reduce pollution, and mean air quality concerns were not a significant obstacle to expansion.
Despite this, opponents say a third runway at Heathrow risks worsening already-high air pollution and could face a legal fight over the issue.
And they warned airport expansion was not compatible with tackling greenhouse gas emissions, which have to be slashed by 80% by 2050 under legally-binding climate targets the UK has set as part of global efforts to halt rising temperatures.
The Government’s climate advisers, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), has said the UK’s emissions from flights in 2050 should be curbed to 2005 levels, which will mean that by mid century aviation emissions will account for 25% of the country’s total.
Today’s report says its forecasts incorporate measures to ensure that carbon dioxide emitted by UK flights and ground movements do not lead to increased emissions overall, either at international level or within the UK economy.
But environmental campaigners said expansion of either Heathrow or Gatwick could not be allowed if climate change was to be tackled effectively, without other areas of the economy having to cut back on emissions more severely.
Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns Andrew Pendleton said: “This report vacillates over a false choice – expansion at Heathrow or Gatwick – when neither can be allowed if we’re to stop runaway global warming.
“Building a new runway at Gatwick or Heathrow would have a hugely damaging impact on local people and their environment and would be a step backwards in UK efforts to tackle climate change.
“Airport expansion also risks worsening local air pollution levels which already breach legal limits.
“The UK will be a laughing stock if it turns up at crucial climate talks in Paris later this year, claiming global leadership while at home having nodded through new runways, killed its onshore wind industry and foisted fracking on communities that don’t want it.”
WWF-UK’s chief executive David Nussbaum said UK aviation had a “serious emissions challenge” and runway expansion would make the problem worse and the solutions tougher.
“Expanding runway capacity will not make Britain more prosperous, but it will make it impossible for the aviation sector to play its proper role in meeting the UK’s emissions targets, to which the prime minister and climate change secretary are committed.
“The greater the emissions from aviation, the greater pressure there will be on other businesses to reduce their CO2 emissions even further.
“If the Government supports the Davies report, they will have to present a plan on how these reductions will be achieved elsewhere – and at what price to the UK economy and people.”
He called for investment in low carbon technologies and making intelligent use of alternatives to flying.
And Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: “Davies’ preferred option of a third runway at Heathrow is an environmental and political minefield.
He called on the prime minister to question whether a new runway was needed at all.
“In the year of the Paris climate summit, what we should be really talking about is how to reduce emissions from aviation.
“As (David) Cameron himself once said in response to a question about aviation and climate change, ’the third runway at Heathrow is not going ahead, no ifs, no buts’. If anything the case against is stronger today than when he made that statement,” he said.
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