British Airways this week lambasted the Tory Party on aviation, claiming its policies were ‘all over the place’.
Today it seems it is Labour that most deserves to be slammed.
The government is allowing thousands more flights from Stansted, where councils and campaigners have joined forces to fight the airport’s expansion plan.
Stansted’s owner, BAA, will now increase the number of flights from 190,000 annually to 265,000 – a massive 40 per cent rise. BAA also wants an extra runway.
To our knowledge, no-one has worked out how many emissions those 75,000 extra flights will generate, or the damage of 50 per cent more flights from London City airport, an increase also sanctioned yesterday. Maybe someone should.
An Inuit politician told the Stansted public inquiry that emissions from aircraft were already damaging his home, close to the Arctic’s precious ice.
We are keen to be told how the government plans to meet its target for cutting the UK’s carbon when Stansted gets and busier and possibly bigger too. Its 60 per cent goal will be out of the question, the 80 per cent recommendation from experts this week, which the RSPB strongly backs, will seem like a bad dream.
The world needs a leader brave and influential enough to direct action to combat climate change. Gordon Brown could be that man – he has hinted that 80 per cent could be the UK’s new target and has a new man in a new climate change ministry ready to act to achieve it.
But both the Prime Minister and Ed Miliband will be foiled if Stansted - and Heathrow - are allowed to expand any further. There’s no point being the globe’s business hub if global warming has scuppered the business.
Stansted to get busier
Tory policy ‘all over the place’