Clause 1 - Aerodrome charges: noise and emissions
Civil Aviation Bill
10:45 am
Tom Brake (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport (And Scotland), Transport; Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)
I do not want to labour the food analogies too much, so I shall try to make this my last such attempt. What is missing from the Bill is the main course, which is greenhouse gases. It is entirely appropriate that we should tackle noise and, at a local level, NOx. However, it is also appropriate that we should tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
Given the extent of work that would be required, amendment No. 16 is a probing amendment. It is an important opportunity to put the Government on the spot and to hear the Minister's thinking about how the Government see the whole area of greenhouse gases emissions from aviation developing, and what role the Government feel that they, the airport operators and the airlines can play now, pending a decision at some indeterminate point in the future where emissions from aviation would be included within the EU emissions trading scheme. That is probably seven years away, perhaps longer.
Amendments Nos. 16, 17 and 18 seek to ensure that greenhouse gases are included, and that the scope of the emissions covered that are relevant to local air quality should be extended to greenhouse gases. If we are starting to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, there will be a need for an organisation, such as the CAA, to take responsibility for holding an annual record of emissions from aircraft flying within or out of the UK. New clause 5 seeks to do that. As the Minister will know, airlines do not currently have any duty to report carbon dioxide emissions. However, a few airlines, such as British Airways, choose to disclose that information in their annual environmental reports. The data for other airlines are difficult to obtain.
Equally, the Minister, who welcomed the launch of the sustainable aviation strategy from the different players in the aviation industry, will know that a number of airlines—British Airways, Virgin and Easyjet—have given an undertaking to establish a common system for reporting total CO?2? emissions, and fleet fuel efficiency by the end of this year. That would include the total direct CO?2? emissions from individual companies, the aggregated and individual airline fuel efficiency in grammes per revenue tonne kilometre—a rather complex concept—and progress towards the 50 per cent. fuel efficiency target.
New clause 5 seeks to ensure that what some of the airlines have said they will do actually happens in practice. That includes not only the big players, such as British Airways, which are adapting a more responsible attitude to reporting the CO?2? emissions, but might bring into play some of the other operators.