Flying in the face of climate change
An expansion of Lydd Airport would put unbearable strain on efforts to halt climate change.
That’s the message from Kent Wildlife Trust, which has looked closely at the carbon emissions which the airport would generate.
The Trust calculates that if the airport achieves its target of 500,000 passengers a year, and flights achieve good fuel efficiency, this could generate up to 68,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – equivalent to the annual production from 41,000 homes.
Just to make up for the carbon dioxide produced by flights from Lydd Airport, every single household in Kent would need to reduce its energy consumption by at least 7%, on top of the 20% we are already being asked to save.*
But the Trust warns that if flights are longer, or if they are less efficient – for instance if they are short haul rather than long haul, or if aircraft are not full – then we may be looking at double these figures. Worse still, if Lydd Airport achieves its ultimate aim of two million passengers a year, then the impact would be equivalent to a quarter of all household emissions for Kent.
Kent Wildlife Trust’s Head of Conservation and Policy, Richard Moyse, said:
The people and wildlife of Kent are already suffering from the effects of climate change, such as drought, sea-level rise, and summer heat-waves. At a time when we should be focussing on reducing our carbon emissions, it is astonishing that any further expansion of aviation – already one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 – should even be contemplated... the airport may argue that flights from Lydd will replace flights from existing airports, but there is no way to guarantee this, and it is likely that by providing more flights, they will simply be putting even more aircraft into the air... Of all the districts in Kent, low-lying Shepway has most to lose from sea-level rise. We just hope that the council will do right by its residents, and its countryside, and throw out the appalling proposals for expansion at Lydd Airport.
How we calculated the figures
According to a memorandum submitted by the Aviation Environment
Federation to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Environmental
Audit, Virgin Atlantic flights generate 0.130 kg CO2 per revenue
passenger kilometre(Check for yourself).
This is lower than the average of 0.330 kg CO2 per passenger kilometre
for short haul flights, quoted by the TUC in their evidence to the same
Select Committee (Check for yourself),
but higher than the figure claimed by easyJet of 95.7 kg CO2 per
passenger kilometre. To be fair, we have used the mean of these three
figures, which is 0.185 kg CO2 per passenger kilometre.
If the average flight from Lydd Airport is 1000km (equivalent to a
one-way flight to Milan or Marseilles, and between one-half to
one-seventh of the operational range of the aircraft which would fly
from an expanded Lydd Airport), then the total distance flown by the
524,870 passengers which the airport says would pass through Lydd each
year would be 524,870,000 kilometres.
Using the Virgin Atlantic figures for carbon emissions on their
flights, this number of passenger kilometres equates to 97,233 tonnes
of CO2.
Average production CO2 by a home in the UK is around 4.5 tonnes, so
that 97,233 tonnes of CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions from
21,605 homes.
However, emissions by aircraft are considered to be more damaging
because they are emitted at high altitudes. The Aviation Environment
Federation states that:
“Aviation's impact on the climate is worsened by the fact that the
polluting emissions happen largely high up in the atmosphere. Here
they can do more damage, with not only CO2 but also water vapour and
nitrogen oxides having an effect, with the whole referred to as
radiative forcing.
“In total, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change estimates that
the warming effect of aircraft emissions is about 1.9 times that of
carbon dioxide alone, due to the other gases produced by planes. (A
higher figure of 2.7 was previously used, but a more conservative one
of 1.9 is now preferred, and is the one commonly used).”
View the Aviation Environment Federations report
Therefore, to offset the impact of aircraft emissions, we would need to
reduce ground-level carbon dioxide emissions by 1.9 x 97,233 tonnes,
i.e. 184,743 tonnes CO2. The Government’s National Statistics website shows that there are around 600,000 households in Kent, giving a
combined annual carbon emission of 2,700,000 tonnes CO2. 184,743 tonnes
CO2 represents 6.8% of this total.
