Heathrow expansion ‘not currently compatible’ with UK net zero
The Climate Change Committee said expansion could only fit the UK’s climate targets if the aviation industry was required to reach zero emissions by 2050.
Heathrow Airport cannot be expanded within the UK’s climate commitments under current policies, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has advised the government.
Nigel Topping, who chairs the independent statutory body, said: “Heathrow expansion is not currently compatible with the UK’s Net Zero target.”
In advice published on 16 September, the committee said expansion could only be consistent with the UK’s carbon budgets if ministers required the aviation industry to get to zero emissions by 2050.
It said the industry could get there by cutting its own emissions and by paying for engineered removals.
The CCC said emissions from aviation had more than doubled since 1990, while emissions across the UK economy as a whole had halved.
Heathrow is responsible for around half of the aviation industry’s emissions, according to the committee.
The committee said the industry should face the full costs of decarbonisation no later than 2050, and that the commercial risks of expansion “should sit with investors, not consumers”.
It also said the climate test in the government’s draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement must be strengthened to explicitly include the 2050 net zero target.
Half of people in England do not fly abroad in any given year, the CCC said, and its citizens’ panel “strongly disapproved” of taxpayers funding the decarbonisation of aviation.
“Emissions from flying are projected to rise, even without Heathrow expansion, and the UK does not currently have a credible plan to bring them down,” Topping said.