Flying and the role of government

We believe that the Government has a crucial role to play. We are calling on the Government to:

• Increase the cost of flying through either emission trading schemes or taxation to a level sufficient to start reducing the number of flights taken annually
• Ensure any tax revenues are transparently hypothecated to low carbon initiatives
• Offer incentives to encourage airlines to be greener and create more fuel efficient planes
• Only expand airport capacity when there is a real need based on current customer numbers

We wrote to the environmental ministers for Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with recommendations on tackling increasing emissions from aviation.

Labour

Response from Julius Hinks, (Defra - Customer Contact Unit, on behalf of David Miliband)
"It is our view that the development of aviation should be sustainable, ensuring that a proper balance is struck and maintained between economic, environmental and social considerations. [...] Within this framework, the polluter should pay and aviation should meet its external costs, including its impact on climate change and other environmental problems.  Inclusion of aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is the best means of doing so..." ( more)

Liberal Democrats

Response from Chris Huhne MP (Shadow Environment Secretary)
"Thanks very much for your letter of 11th December, much of which I agree with [...] we favour putting aviation into the ETS and putting flying on a level playing field with a quadrupling of the revenue from a reformed national aviation tax and an EU kerosene tax..." ( more)

Conservatives

Response from Greg Barker MP (Shadow Minister for the Environment)
"First of all, let me assure you that I agree with you that one of the biggest issues for consumers when choosing how to travel is what impact their journey is likely to have upon the environment.  This requires airlines and travel companies, such as responsibletravel.com, to take a leadership role in changing travellers’ behaviour..." ( more)


Read about flying and the responsible traveller in more detail here and here's our top 5 tips for travellers facing the flying dilemma.