Airlines should pay for CO2 removal if Heathrow expands, say climate advisers
Climate Change Committee says government cannot expand airport without requiring aviation industry to clean up its emissions Heathrow airport should be allowed to expand only if airlines pay for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the government’s climate advisers have said. Building a third runway and new terminals , as some in government want to do , would breach the UK’s carbon…
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) claims that Heathrow's third runway expansion cannot be approved without modifying existing climate policies. The CCC suggests that the aviation industry should finance cleaner fuels and pay for carbon dioxide removal machines, which could increase the cost of flights to Alicante by £150 and to New York by £400 by 2050.
The expanded airport would emit more carbon than any other sector by 2050. Heathrow insists that expansion and climate goals are not mutually exclusive and that it will deliver both. However, the CCC chair, Nigel Topping, stated that the current conditions for Heathrow expansion do not align with the UK's Net Zero target. The government is considering the CCC's advice and will weigh it alongside other responses to its consultation.
The £33 billion project would increase Heathrow's capacity to 150 million passengers annually, up from 85 million. While the CCC believes that making the industry bear the costs of clean-up is the fairest approach, the airline industry disputes this, arguing that the transition must be affordable.
Written by urgent.news from BBC Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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