Travel industry set to launch climate-change lobbying group

Travel industry set to launch climate-change lobbying group
By Tim Webb
Published: 27 May 2007
Independent UK

A lobbying group chaired by former CBI boss Sir Digby Jones to represent the travel industry over climate change will launch by the middle of next month.

Called Flying Matters, the coalition includes airports operator BAA, airlines British Airways, easyJet and Virgin Atlantic, as well as aerospace companies Airbus and Rolls-Royce. It will also represent trade unions, including T&G, and travel agents, and has appointed former energy minister Brian Wilson as vice chairman.

Environmentalists have been hammering airlines over the carbon emissions they cause. Currently, only carbon emissions resulting from UK domestic flights are included in government emissions figures. International flights departing from UK airports are excluded. Including all emissions from flights taking off from UK airports - domestic and international - the share of the UK's emissions caused by airlines could rise almost five-fold to 24 per cent by 2050.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, shocked the industry in December when he doubled air passenger duty on flights. Airlines pointed out that the tax was not directly linked to plane emissions. The industry believes that because it is losing the debate on climate change, this is allowing politicians to levy opportunistic "green taxes".

The lobbying group, which will have its own website, will try to influence the media and politicians.

The industry points out that improvements in fuel efficiency have led to a 70 per cent reduction in emissions per kilometre flown over the past 40 years. But further improvements in fuel efficiency are much harder to achieve.

Michelle Di Leo, campaign director of Flying Matters, said: "Flying isn't a luxury - it underpins our economy and contributes to our lives in so many ways. It is precisely because flying matters that this coalition has been formed to ensure we're part of a balanced and informed debate about our contribution to climate change and what we're doing about it."