Andy Harrison's article in the Financial Times published 14 February 2007
To misquote Monty Python’s The Life of Brian: "It’s happening, it’s really happening."
It is hard to see how anybody who has read the United Nations’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and Sir Nicholas Stern’s review can deny that global warming is a clear and present danger and that this generation has a responsibility to take action now.
Most within the aviation industry recognise that aviation pollutes and that we must improve the environmental efficiency of today’s operations and work on tomorrow’s technologies. But we cannot act in isolation – it is time for a debate with governments and regulators on how the industry can achieve what the Stern review called "green growth".
Stern is a good place to start – it said that aviation CO2 accounts for
1.6 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, rising to 2.5 per cent in 2050, assuming no substantial technological breakthroughs. Given that the UK is responsible for just 2 per cent of the world’s emissions, the impact of UK aviation on climate change is mathematically minimal. This is not an excuse for inaction but aviation will only ever be a small part of the overall solution.
We are on the cusp of big advances in aircraft and engine technologies that will lead to dramatic reductions in emissions, which have not yet been factored into the environmental forecasts about our industry. In the meantime airlines have an obligation to maximise their environmental efficiency (particularly by operating the cleanest available technology).
For their part, governments must ensure that policies balance the vast economic and social benefits of flying with its impact on climate change; they should demand that new technologies be adopted faster; they should mandate minimum environmental standards for aircraft to operate in Europe (as recently proposed for cars); and they should recognise that some airlines are already dramatically more efficient than others.
A poor example is the £2.4bn that the UK government collects annually from air passenger duty. APD provides no incentive for airlines to operate the cleanest aircraft; it completely omits air freight and private jets; the proceeds are not allocated to any scheme to improve the environment; and it is disproportionate – on a UK domestic return flight, the £20 APD is now 25 per cent of the average fare and about 10 times the cost of offsetting the carbon emitted on an easyJet flight.
Surely, it would be better to provide incentives for consumers to choose airlines operating the cleanest aircraft available. Last year we removed 22 older aircraft at a cost of more than £275m as part of our drive for efficiency and in the coming four years we will buy 100 brand-new Airbus A319s – surely this substitution is the very definition of the "green growth" that Stern foresaw in his report.
Part of the blame lies with airlines for not capturing the imagination of governments, regulators and passengers on the issue. This is a strange omission from an industry that prides itself on effective communication with its passengers and one we intend to correct. It is for this reason that easyJet has today published its environmental code, which contains three promises – that easyJet will be efficient in the air, efficient on the ground and help shape a greener future.
The same business model that gives us low fares (new aircraft, high occupancy rates, direct flights) also gives us environmental efficiency in the skies – easyJet emits 27 per cent fewer greenhouse gases per passenger kilometre than a traditional airline on an identical route. In addition we recognise that we can and we will expect more of our ground suppliers at airports.
We also intend to play a leading role in improving the environmental performance of our industry. There is a lot to be done – reforming Europe’s inefficient air traffic system, implementing a meaningful European emissions trading scheme, working on the next generation of aircraft, giving customers comprehensive environmental information for travel to a particular destination and helping them to offset the carbon emissions of their flight.
We need a debate on appropriate action. Grounding every aircraft in the world would have a miniscule impact on climate change yet a vast impact on our economies. As an industry we must take a chunk out of the 2.5 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions that Stern projects for our industry by 2050 and, as a society, we should develop similarly effective solutions for the other 97.5 per cent.