Sir Richard Branson today defends his company’s efforts to help tackle climate change.
Virgin last week flew a plane partly on biofuel to show that it was possible. Branson’s firm is also sending power back to the National Grid from the hi-tech braking system on its trains, has cut emissions by 40 per cent through the installation of solar panels on a hotel in Morocco and is investing in wind and wave power elsewhere, Branson says.
At the same time, Tom Enders of Airbus has called on the aviation industry to take climate change in hand and react to it before regulators react much more harshly to those flying planes.
He said last week that he and his counterparts must do much more but also that he, and they, had done much already to cut aircraft pollution. Even so, he is right that aviation ‘must move to the forefront of eco-efficiency’.
Most people are not going to cut the number of times they fly any time soon. That does not mean the government and regional planning authorities should facilitate any increase in flights, by expanding existing airports such as Stansted and building new ones such as Lydd in Kent.
Whilst BA, which dismissed Virgin’s biofuels flight as a PR stunt, is not willing to play, could it be that others in the aviation world are starting to take climate change seriously?
Small steps their actions may be and their incentives for taking them may be far from altruistic. Steps they are nonetheless. It is time now that government took much larger steps towards cutting our carbon emissions. Ministers should start by shelving next month’s order to increase biofuel sales until there is proof that biofuels are not hastening climate change, and then raise its emissions reduction target from 60 per cent to 80 per cent in the forthcoming Climate Change Bill.
Click here for more on the RSPB's biofuels campaign
To read Richard Branson's response, click here
And for Tom Enders, click here