News: New report challenges green groups on aviation pollution

Flights > News > # 1326 (19/06/2007)

The UK’s largest pilots’ union says people have no need to feel guilty for flying, despite increasing pressure from environmental groups targeting the aviation industry.
The British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) has carried out research that claims to debunk the widely held belief that air transport is the major cause of growing carbon dioxide emissions.
BALPA chairman, Captain Mervyn Granshaw, said aviation has become a scapegoat for global warming, adding: “Our report deals with the half truths and untruths' told by those who attack air travel and make passengers feel guilty about taking a flight.”
Rail companies, especially Eurostar and Virgin Trains, have heavily promoted their green credentials in recent advertising campaigns, but according to the BALPA report planes are no more polluting than trains on journeys of over 500 miles such as London to Frankfurt. It also highlights European Commission statistics which show that in the year 2000 alone, EU registered ships emitted almost 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, significantly more than from EU aircraft.
Granshaw said: “No-one is calling for restrictions on high speed train travel or for an end to ocean cruises, and no-one is calling for any dramatic cutback in car travel, the biggest polluter of all transport modes. Air travel has just been an easy target, but not any more.
“Our report clearly shows that technological advances now being researched will cut aircraft emissions still further. It would be inappropriate and premature to restrict air transport at this time. The damage that would be done not only to our industry but to tourism and to the economies of developing nations would be enormous.”
BALPA have sent copies of the report to the government and environmental campaign groups.
“We want feedback, and hopefully we can move to a consensus. This is too important an issue to be reduced to the slogans that some campaigners and politicians have been using,” Granshaw added.