Today Jenny wrote to Communities Against Gatwick Noise and Emissions (CAGNE), the volunteers behind the ‘Pledge to Fly Less’ environmental campaign to say:

Jenny supports you; she thinks it is vital to put the brakes on airport expansion to save the planet

CAGNE said this was a wonderful endorsement of their efforts to educate citizens to how they can instantly reduce their carbon footprint by reducing how many times they fly a year, if at all!

On the subject of fossil fuel, the fuel of aviation now and for decades to come, Jenny has commented: ‘We need a new era of fossil free politics.  Our ministers should reject the advances of fossil fuel lobbyists, and our councils and mayors should be supported to transition to a zero carbon economy.’

Jenny works with campaigners and industry to promote a more radical policy agenda on climate change and has said of the plans to expand Heathrow:

‘In 2016, the Airports Commission used evidence from the Climate Change Committee to state that Heathrow expansion was OK if it stayed within national limits for carbon emissions, but the CCC now want the UK target changed to zero emissions by 2050 and have stated that aviation expansion will have to be curbed.’  

But policy is allowing expansion via the back door in ‘Beyond the Horizons’ a Department for Transport document where it offers the owners of airports an opportunity to ignore climate emergency, nationally and internationally, by ‘making best use of current facilities’.

‘The Airports Commission only justified the existing policy of Heathrow expansion by taking an extremely optimistic view about future efficiency improvements and making big assumptions, which are not widely accepted. Even with these efficiency improvements, the Airports Commission was already talking about carbon capping and taxing. Even in their optimistic scenarios, passenger numbers would eventually have to fall.’

‘Heathrow scraped through the recent court case because the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon emissions is not part of UK law.  However, the Climate Act is law and so are the five yearly carbon budgets, which will have to be reduced further to reach zero emissions in 2050.’

If we are serious about reducing carbon then we can’t allow airports, as Gatwick is illustrating, to flaunt carbon emission limits by presenting carbon on take off and landing up to 3,000ft whilst seemingly ignoring other airports’ growth, which all adds up to make one big carbon mess for future generations.