Not expanding airport capacity is an essential precautionary measure

A guest blog by Chris Broome from South Yorkshire Climate Alliance

Discussion around efforts to re-open Doncaster Sheffield Airport continue to be dominated by whether it will be financially viable. South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and City of Doncaster Council are still gathering evidence on this before finally committing to the project. The importance of protecting taxpayers’ money is stressed as paramount. Meanwhile, unanswered questions of how the airport could fit with dealing with the climate emergency are being sidelined.

Considering how clear it is that extreme weather events are becoming more common and set to get much worse, it is strange that SYMCA has not been reporting on the emissions targets it set in 2019. While the headline aim to reach net-zero by 2040 still stands, what determines the region’s contribution to climate change is the amount of emissions over time. Therefore, there is also an all-time carbon budget. Progress on staying within it has been appalling, with around two-thirds already exhausted by the end of last year, just five years after its start date. Even in the unlikely event that regional net-zero is achieved by 2040, the emissions which will have occurred in the meantime could put us firmly on a path towards an unmanageable scale of extreme weather.  This situation cannot really be blamed on any unique failings in South Yorkshire; we are simply too stuck in a global culture of inadequate climate action.

The environmental justification being offered for the “South Yorkshire Airport City” project as a whole is that it will be a centre for advanced manufacturing and sustainable aviation. Good work in these areas is ongoing, but some realism is needed about how much can be achieved. Lightweight materials can only be brought into use as aircraft fleets are replaced, which happens over a timescale of decades. “Sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF) can be used in existing aircraft but its drawbacks are that its use still involves some emissions and its very limited availability from genuinely sustainable sources. Other industries will be competing for the same hydrogen and organic “waste”, such as used vegetable oil, which are used to make SAF. In all, this region’s ongoing research work may well be valuable, provided it is used to reduce emissions from the existing level of flights and not to seek to justify another airport.

Interestingly, SYMCA Mayor Oliver Coppard has said that we need to fly less overall. Certainly, if there were some overarching national strategy to reduce the number of flights taken nationally, the risks to the climate would be less severe. But Government policy is to enable continued unrestricted aviation growth. Its support for various airport expansion plans around London and the South East suggests it does not even have any inclination to reduce the North-South divide in this sector.

In February, the Government’s independent advisors, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published a major report in which it estimated that aviation’s carbon dioxide emissions would rise to 27% of those for the UK economy as a whole, in a “balanced pathway” towards the UK carbon budgets. Considering that flying is just one of so many human activities which cause climate change and only half of the population flies in any given year, that is a big chunk. Yet it is not even the whole story. Airliners also cause other global warming impacts, mainly through their formation of contrails at high altitude. There is no simple comparison between these effects and those of CO2 because they are more intense but dissipate quickly. Normally, the CCC compares and analyses the global warming impacts of all greenhouse gases over a hundred-year period. However, it has found that for its “balanced pathway” and if measured over a shorter twenty-year period, aviation’s non-CO2 impacts exceed those of the CO2.

The CCC advised, “The cost of decarbonising aviation and addressing non-CO2 effects should be reflected in the cost to fly. This will help manage growth in aviation demand”. In its “balanced pathway”, no demand growth occurs until after 2030.  

Given this information and during a climate emergency, not expanding airport capacity would seem an absolutely basic and essential precautionary measure.  The expansion being planned seems to be more down to excessive political pressures to decarbonise the economy almost exclusively in ways which support our existing industries and growth (meaning consumption growth). This has led to outlandish Government estimates of the emissions reductions various technologies can achieve. These are then supported by the aviation industry and research bodies seeking funding.   

 At some point in the near future, we hope and expect that our political leaders will accept the need for proportionate measures to moderate the number of flights taken. A frequent flyer tax is probably the fairest option. In the meantime, we invite readers to sign this “Stop Airport Expansion” petition – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/714927 .

Meanwhile, Doncaster has other economic options. We can only give an indication of what might be the best but for example, a shift towards public transport could create thousands of jobs requiring generally similar skills to aviation. There are already skills shortages across  industry, such as in renewable energy and upgrading the electricity grid. 

The region, and Doncaster especially, deserves a more realistic economic and environmental plan.