Rishi Sunak Defies Net Zero Ban on New Airports
Rishi Sunak’s Government has decided to ignore expert advice to halt airport expansions as a way to fight climate change, setting the stage for legal battles with environmental groups. The Telegraph has the story
In one of the most significant moves yet of the Prime Minister’s shift to approaching Net Zero in a “proportionate and pragmatic” way, the Government will reject the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) formal advice that all airport expansions must be halted.
The move comes days after Mr. Sunak appointed Claire Coutinho, one of his closest political allies, as Net Zero Secretary, amid a growing backlash among Tory MPs over the Government’s climate policies and the cost they are adding to consumer bills.
Ministers believe airport growth will have a ‘key role’ in boosting the U.K.’s global links and helping to grow the economy.
Bristol and Southampton airports are among those preparing to significantly expand their capacity after legal challenges against their expansions failed, while London’s Gatwick, City and Heathrow airports are also hoping to embark on major expansion projects.
Elsewhere in the world, new international airports are being built in cities such as Mumbai, while major expansions are under consideration in Dubai and Sydney.
The CCC was set up by the 2008 Climate Change Act to hold the Government to account over its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, with its most recent five-year “carbon budget” put into law by Boris Johnson in 2021.
Rejecting its recommendations would set the Government up for a major legal clash with environmental groups. Last year, a High Court judgment said that “considerable weight” should be given to the CCC’s advice. Groups such as Greenpeace are planning to cite the committee’s latest recommendation in legal challenges against further airport expansions.
But a Department for Transport spokesman told the Telegraph: “Airport growth, and the aviation sector as a whole, has a key role to play in boosting our global connectivity and helping grow the economy. We remain supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way.”
Ministers are putting their hope in the rapid development of green aviation fuels to decarbonise the sector. This week, Ms. Coutinho will unveil a proposed legal duty on the Government to draw up plans to subsidise so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
The Government’s approach will heap pressure on Labour to take a position on the issue.
Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, told the Telegraph last week that she would do “whatever it takes” to attract investment to Britain.
Worth reading in full.
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Brinkmanship. I can only think that the futility of Nett Zero is beginning to dawn on some, but no-one wants to be the one to repeal the Climate Change Act and its dependent instruments. Sunak is putting Labour into bat. The Tories are a busted flush, and if Labour try to drive through 2030, they too will be rounded on by the citizens. Civil war between the eco-fanatics and the red-pill’ers, some time around 2026. You heard it here first…
Thatcher managed to push her transformations despite very strong, organised opposition because the public had bought into it.
I don’t see the British public on the whole questioning the need for Net Zero. They just want it to be painless.
It’s just another o e of those fantasies that the general public wants. Net Zero but no pain. Lockdowns but no economic impact. Protection against “radicals” but no censorship. A generous welfare state but not too many taxes.
Very well put, Stewart. They want to both eat the cake and keep the cake.
“Ministers are putting their hope in the rapid development of green aviation fuels to decarbonise the sector. This week, Ms. Coutinho will unveil a proposed legal duty on the Government to draw up plans to subsidise so-called sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).”
There you go – achieved by replacing one revenue raising fuel by subsidising another. Will they never understand?
Ah, I see – how can we increase taxes so that “Jet Zero” becomes doable?
Well, firstly we will tell the plebs it is for their own good and we will make sure that the cost of the Jet Zero is jacked so high that the proletariat are effectively priced out of the market. It’s a win win – the government can claim it is doing its bit for net zero while at the same time impoverishing the population in the name of saving the planet. This is simply a cover for stealing from the poor to fatten the wallets of the “elites.”
Very predictable.
The problem is the plebs believe every climate scare story thrown at them even though they could see it was BS just by looking out the window and remembering that the weather has always been pretty much the same.
…in much the same way that they could have simply looked through their front windows to see it wasn’t a pandemic….
Except you cannot see climate out of your living room window. It is so variable naturally that it is easy for ordinary people to believe that everything they see is “climate change” when as you point out it is really just “climate”.
There is no worse tyranny than the one that does it to you “for your own good”. Because these people never sleep. At least the burglar and the con artist sometimes go to bed.
We’ll see how long this lasts – until the phone call comes through, I suppose. Meanwhile: why do we need an unelected bunch of zealots like the CCC (not much diversity of view there, I imagine) to “hold the government to account” on this particular matter, given that we already have – oh, I don’t know, just off the top of my head – His Majesty’s Loyal (albeit supposed) Opposition, the rest of Parliament including backbenchers, select committees and peers, the mainstream and alternative media and more pressure groups than you can list in a day. The vast majority of those will want ‘more, harder, faster’ so it can hardly be argued that the govt is somehow avoiding scrutiny (although we all know that the opposing view is never allowed an airing). Scrap the CCC and enjoy the meltdown.
And, with respect Your Honour, even more “considerable weight” should be given to the views of citizens who are the principal funders, targets and victims of this malevolent nonsense.
This exemplifies the idiocy of Westminster and Whitehall:
‘The highest proportion of SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) came from Malaysia, which supplied seven million litres to the UK. In 2020, Malaysian firms exported more ‘used’ cooking oil to Britain and Ireland than was actually collected in the country,
‘Other large exporters of SAF to the UK last year were China, which supplied five million litres, and Indonesia, which supplied one million.
The European Biodiesel Board last month said it strongly suspected that a recent surge in imports of biodiesel from China involved fraudulent declarations that the feedstocks were made from waste materials.’
‘Even genuine used cooking oil can indirectly cause deforestation because countries export oil they would otherwise have used and instead use palm oil to meet domestic demand’
UK airlines’ new ‘sustainable’ fuels may be causing deforestation in Asia
Open Democracy 16 May 2023
Drop Nut Zero!
Please reopen Manston Airport. Give Thanet a chance to have jobs and growth. Regional airports are the best way to even out freight and passenger pinch points at the major airports and help local economies. It is a disgrace how the environmentalists have forced millions of pounds to be squandered with judicial reviews and appeals.
“Please reopen Manston Airport.”
Absolutely no chance. According to Agenda 2030 there are to be only three (3) functioning airports in the UK by erm, 2030.
And look at the weasel words: “we remain supportive of airport expansion (so no ‘new airports’, then) where it can be delivered in a sustainable way (which can mean anything they choose)”. FIRES report spells it out: only Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast to operate after 2029, all airports closed by 2049, beside end to all shipping. After 2050 – electric planes! nuclear or electric ships! Bugs for everyone!
“Bugs for everyone!”
They can firk right off.
Have you ever seen a film with Paul Newman called “Hombre”? In that film Newman plays a white man who lived all his life with Red Indians. He is on a stagecoach with a posh lady from the Eastern United States who tries to put him down by saying “You lived with these Indians and I believe they actually eat dog”. ——Newman was quick to reply with “You would eat dog and you would fight for the bones”. ———The posh lady had him removed from the coach and made to sit along side the coach driver. ———–I suspect if GREENS get their way we might all soon be eating dog and fighting for the bones.
Manston is needed to stack HGVs when the French Gov and/or their Unions decide to block channel crossings.
Otherwise, they’d have built on it to provide accommodation for the criminal migrants they’re shipping in.
What will never be allowed is a facility which might benefit local, British, taxpayers.
Posturing from Sunak. He knows it will just lead to another protected legal battle which is intended to demonstrate to the electorate (in the run-up to a general election) that “he’s on their side.” He knows full well that it will achieve SFA.
If he wanted to stop the Net Zero lunacy, he’d have a Statutory Instrument drafted which amends the Climate Change Act.
This is a reverse psychology plan . Intentional for the government to loose lawsuits to thus make it legally binding . It’s political Guff by technocrats
There is NOTHING “proportionate or pragmatic” about forcing ourselves in law to reduce emissions of CO2 at a rate that is virtually impossible without shutting the whole economy down and at an eye watering cost to taxpayers not just financially but also at cost to their standard of living and well being with their ability to heat their homes properly, travel freely, eat the foods we choose, take a flight abroad and virtually every activity we in a free prosperous country have come to enjoy. By forcing ourselves in law to do this absurdity we leave ourselves open to legal challenges and to being sued. You cannot pretend to save the planet one minute and seek prosperity the next. Net Zero is total absurdity and if ordinary people knew the cost to their wallet and standard of living rather just some fanciful ideas they have of looking after the environment because they saw that on their BBC news, then they would be truly horrified. Do ordinary people know eg that wind costs about 3 times more than coal or gas and that they pay the subsidy out of their own wallets as government force energy companies to use wind if… Read more »