Consumer information and carbon
offsetting
134. One of the Department's four carbon reduction
priorities is "encouraging people to be more aware of the
environmental impact of the journeys they make and encourag[ing]
them to make more environmentally friendly journeys."[192]
As part of this, the Department has helped to introduce the fuel
efficiency labelling of new cars in car showrooms. There is, however,
nothing equivalent to this in respect of aviation. That this is
particularly needed is illustrated by the Department's own research
which has shown that only one in eight air travellers associate
flying with its impacts on climate change.[193]
135. The Government
should study how best to raise public awareness of the climate
change impacts of flying, and of the undesirability - and ultimately
impossibility - of ongoing increases in flights within a declining
carbon budget. As part of this, the Department should force airlines
which operate services from and within the UK prominently to display
(eg, on all their adverts, tickets, and webpages) a fuel efficiency
label, similar to that for new cars, based on the average fuel
efficiency of their entire fleet which flies out of UK airports.
Additionally, wherever airlines advertise the routes which they
operate from the UK, they should be compelled to state the relevant
carbon emissions per passengeraccording to a nationally-set
methodology for calculating them - alongside the fare.
136. Carbon offsetting is one means of both raising
awareness of the climate change impacts of aviation, and of helping
to reduce them. Offsetting is an attempt effectively to cancel
out a calculable amount of carbon one is responsible for emitting
(eg, from a specific plane journey), by paying a fee which goes
towards a carbon reduction project. This sometimes involves planting
trees, but increasingly now means funding a low carbon energy
project in a developing economy.
137. We welcome
the Government's new commitment to offset all its air travel through
the new Government Carbon Offsetting Fund. Equally, we share its
enthusiasm for voluntary offsetting schemes.
At the same time, we fully recognise that offsetting is not the
solution to the global warming problems caused by growth in aviation,
which fundamentally requires a stabilisation of its absolute emissions.
Also, we retain concerns as to the potential for offsetting schemes
to be subject to fraud. Given
that offsetting payments are relatively cheap, help to tackle
climate change, and can be used to improve the lives of deprived
communities in the developing world, the Government should make
them a compulsory charge on all airline tickets. It is important,
however, that this is accompanied by rigorous auditing of the
projects funded as a result. Moreover, the public should not be
encouraged to think that offsetting implied that growth in aviation
emissions was environmentally tenable.
138. Given that in CCP 2006 the Government went out
of its way to praise "recent airline initiatives, allowing
customers to voluntarily calculate and offset emissions from their
flights"[194]
as a contribution to the UK Climate Change Programme, we feel
it only right to report our observations on the scheme operated
by British Airways through Climate Care. In our recent experience
of flying with British Airways, we found that at "no point
in the passenger experience from booking to landing was it ever
mentioned [
] as an option by anyone involved in that process."[195]
Indeed, Dr Andrew Sentance of BA confirmed that take-up of the
scheme had been low: "We have offset between 1000 and 2000
tonnes of CO2 with Climate Care in the past year."[196]
Considering that, according to BA's own website, a single fully
loaded jumbo jet will account for 1574 tonnes CO2 on one return
flight between Heathrow and Sydneybased
on a load of 410 passengers, each calculated to emit 3.85 tonnes
CO2 and paying an offsetting charge of £28.83this
is not very impressive.[197]
What seems just as unimpressive is that, if one goes direct to
Climate Care's own website, the figure it gives per passenger
on the same flight is 5.61 tonnes CO2, at a charge of £42.11.[198]
The difference is due to the different methodology which BA use
to calculate emissions from flights.
Latest research on radiative
forcing
139. One of the things which has changed since EAC's
last report on aviation is the state of scientific research on
the extent of radiative forcing from aviation's non-CO2 contributions
to global warming. As DfT explained to us:
The original and previously most widely supported
work relating to the non-CO2 impacts of aviation is that of the
IPCC in 1999, which suggested a reference factor of 2.7. [
]
The multiplier of 2.5 was used in a March 2003 joint report by
HMT and DfT on 'Aviation and Economic Instruments' to estimate
the climate change related external costs of aviation.
More recent research: Trade-Off in 2000[199]
updates the estimate of carbon dioxide forcing to the year 2000
and improves the accuracy of the impact assessment, resulting
in a factor of 1.9. [
]
In order to reflect the most recent and robust scientific
evidence currently available, Government has therefore decided
to recognise the more recent TradeOff work and use a multiplier
of 2. The multiplier of 2 has been adopted for the Government
Carbon Offsetting Fund.
This decision will be kept under review as further
scientific evidence becomes available. [
][200]
140. We would simply observe that in neither the
original IPCC report nor the more recent TRADEOFF paper
do the multipliers take the possible effects of aviation-induced
cirrus clouds into account (essentially, because the science is
still too uncertain to quantify them with adequate confidence).[201]
For this reason, we
welcome the Government's commitment to keep its assessment of
the radiative forcing (RF) of aviation under review, as further
scientific evidence becomes available. This is particularly welcome,
given that the paper it relies upon states that, depending on
the results of further study into the effects of cirrus clouds,
"It is possible that the total aviation RF could be twice
as large as the total RF given here." In its current progress
review of the Future of Aviation White Paper, the Department should
clearly state how it proposes to alter its aviation policies,
should further research indicate that the effects of cirrus clouds
are indeed so large.
163 Environmental Audit Committee, Aviation: Sustainability
and the Government's second response, para 6 Back
164
"Reducing Carbon Emissions from Transport", Environmental
Audit Committee press release, 19 January 2006 Back
165
Cm 6764, p 70 Back
166
A. Bows, K. Anderson, and P. Upham, "Contraction and Convergence:
UK Carbon Emissions and the Implications for UK Air Traffic",
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, February 2006 www.tyndall.ac.uk
Back
167
DfT, Aviation and Global Warming, January 2004, www.dft.gov.uk,
para 3.57. The Department in this context defines "UK aviation"
as encompassing both domestic and international departures. Back
168
Environmental Audit Committee, Pre-Budget Report 2003: Aviation
Follow-up, para 42 Back
169
For reference, if aviation emissions in absolute terms were kept
at their current levels through to 2050, then aviation's share
of the UK carbon budget would still rise, given the cuts made
by all other sectors. To put it another way, if aviation does
not join in the carbon reduction process, it will still force
all other sectors to make steeper cuts, even if its emissions
do not grow at all in absolute terms. Given the projected improvements
to fuel efficiency which the industry forecasts, fixing emissions
at their current levels would still allow for a substantial increase
in passenger numbers. This questions still further the need for
an aggressive airport expansion plan. It also suggests that there
is actually significant room for both an expansion of aviation
and an enforcement of some level of absolute reductions
in aviation emissions at some point by 2050. Back
170
A. Bows, P. Upham, K. Anderson, "Growth Scenarios for EU
and UK Aviation: contradictions with climate policy", Report
by Tyndall Centre for Climate Change (North) for Friends of the
Earth, April 2005, www.foe.co.uk Back
171
Qq 566 -7 Back
172
Cm 6764, p 71 Back
173
The Government says it "is also continuing to press for the
development and implementation, through the International Civil
Aviation Organization, of emissions trading at the international
level." Cm 6764, p 71 Back
174
Cm 6887, para 6.38, p 132 Back
175
Ev 236 Back
176
Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on
1 February 2006, HC (2005-06) 882, Q 18 Back
177
Ev236 Back
178
Ev230 Back
179
Environmental Audit Committee, Pre-Budget Report 2003: Aviation
Follow-up, para 36 Back
180
Q703 Back
181
Q703 Back
182
Q573 [Mr Dowds] Back
183
Cm 6764, p 72 Back
184
Q 710 Back
185
Environmental Audit Committee, Pre-Budget 2005: Tax, economic
analysis, and climate change, para 17 Back
186
That is, it reclassified Croatia as a destination to which the
EU rates of Air Passenger Duty, rather than the more expensive
long-haul rates, should apply. Back
187
Q603 [Mr Dyer, Mr Bullock] Back
188
Q705 Back
189
Rate given for "Marked gas oil and ultra low sulphur diesel
not for road fuel use". HM Revenue & Customs, "Current
Hydrocarbon Oil duty rates", viewed 13 July 2006, www.hmrc.gov.uk. Back
190
Q546 [Mr Dowds] Back
191
Q546 [Mr Dowds] Back
192
Q646 Back
193
DfT, Attitudes to Air Travel, 2002, www.dft.gov.uk,p 15 Back
194
Cm 6764, p 72 Back
195
Q530 [Mr Hurd] Back
196
Q 531 Back
197
http://www.climatecare.org/britishairways/index.cfm Back
198
http://www.climatecare.org/calculators/flights_calc.cfm Back
199
Sausen R., Isaksen I., Grewe V., Hauglustaine D., Lee D. S.,
Myhre G., Köhler M. O., Pitari G., Schumann U., Stordal F.
and Zerefos C. (2005) "Aviation radiative forcing in 2000:
and update on IPCC (1999)", Meteorologische Zeitschrift
114, 555 - 561 Back
200
Ev221-2 Back
201
Sausen, R., et al, (2005), p 559 Back