Afternoon:
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Today's demonstration at Stansted may be over and the delayed passengers on their way again. But it marks an important shift in the battle over airport expansion - and ministers and aviation bosses should prepare themselves for a lot more of the same.
Because such protests are different: they are primarily about climate change, not aircraft noise or spoilt countryside. And as ministers gather this week in Poznan in Poland for a major climate change conference, such voices could cause the British Government significant embarrassment.
For protest organisers Plane Stupid, this morning's runway occupation was just the most dramatic in a string of coups: their best-known previous stunt, last February, was a daring protest on the roof of Parliament.
Today is the first time that significant numbers of protesters have managed to occupy a British civilian runway, although August 2007's Climate Camp at Heathrow blockaded offices and there have been major demos at London's main airport this year, too.
For airport operator BAA, the occupation is a major embarrassment. That a group of peaceful protesters was able to enter what should be a secure area so easily makes a mockery of BAA's much-vaunted security measures: protesters appear to have been allowed in on the grounds that they were driving an old fire engine.
For passengers who have had to submit to ever more onerous security checks over the past 18 months, it will be galling that the company has apparently not made enough effort to secure the airport's perimeter. It has to be asked: if a few young protesters can simply drive in, would BAA's security deter committed, well-equipped terrorists?
BAA will face more such incursions. Plane Stupid have proved themselves both articulate and well-organised. But they are part of a growing movement. A number of local groups are now fighting airport plans, the longest established of which is HACAN, campaigning against a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow. Greenpeace, too, has made a major commitment to fight airport expansion.
The movement is fuelled in part by the anger of local residents. At Stansted and Heathrow, expansion plans threaten to obliterate existing villages and blanket families with the unbearable throb of aircraft noise for most of the day.
What is different about Plane Stupid's protest is that its real target is the aviation industry's greenhouse gas emissions and their role in climate change.
At present, aviation accounts for seven per cent of UK CO2 emissions - much less than road transport. But aviation is the fastest-growing source of emissions: by 2050, the Government estimates that flying will be responsible for 35 per cent of emissions.
And if that seems imbalanced, it's even worse than it sounds. Late last month, the Climate Change Act finally became law. It commits the Government to an ambitious target of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Thus while aviation emissions are forecast to increase, those from other parts of our economy will be decreasing - so that by then aviation will be responsible for more emissions than, say, electricity generation.
It seems a strange prioritisation of industries. Yet this Government has long had a cosy relationship with aviation. Many senior government spin doctors go on to work there: just last year, the Prime Minister's former official spokesman, Tom Kelly, joined BAA as corporate and public affairs director, while Julia Simpson, former Blair adviser and head of communications at the Home Office, joined British Airways as head of corporate communications.
Never mind that the recession makes the industry's growth forecasts look wildly optimistic. At Stansted, ministers gave the go-ahead in October for plans that will allow BAA to increase passenger numbers from 25 million to 35 million a year.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace has published documents showing direct collusion between Department for Transport officials and BAA for more than a year prior to the start of the Heathrow consultation last year, helping BAA to massage environmental impact forecasts. Both the Prime Minister and the former transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, have both given the strong impression that the decision on expansion is a done deal.
Only now are the first cracks appearing in that united front. Last week, the new transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, unexpectedly announced that the Heathrow decision had been postponed until next month; it has been awaited since March. There is a growing Labour backbench revolt and reports of unease among ministers, not least because of the damage a green light for Heathrow could do Labour in some marginal seats in London and the South-East.
And then there is Gordon Brown's self-image as an international tribune, on climate change as on economic recovery. The Climate Change Act is indeed an important step. Thanks to a backbench rebellion, its target includes aviation emissions, something ministers long tried to avoid. New environment secretary Ed Miliband has been bullish about Britain's international leadership in fighting climate change: in an interview today he calls for a make Poverty History-style "popular mobilisation" to pressure leaders into a new international agreement.
The popular mobilisation that Miliband got this morning may not be quite what he had in mind. But it is part of a growing green militancy.
What's more, such activists are likely to get away with it. Last month, six Greenpeace activists who broke into Kingsnorth power station in Kent were acquitted when they called international climate change experts in their defence, convincing a jury that their protest had been necessary to stop climate change.
Their point is clear - and hard to argue with. This week, world leaders will meet in Poznan for major talks on the international agreement to replace the Kyoto treaty when it expires in 2012: Ed Miliband will doubtless be talking up the UK's targets. Yet while ministers talk airily of huge shifts in renewable energy or of a mass switchover to electric cars, they press ahead with Heathrow expansion and with a new generation of polluting coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth. Such moves will have precisely the opposite of what the new climate law is supposed to achieve.
For the moment, the reddest faces are likely to be at BAA. Once again, they look like a company that says one thing - in this case, on security - while doing another. But this protest has also exposed the hypocrisy and muddle at the heart of the Government's environmental policies. Face it, Gordon: we can't fly our way to a green economy.
Reader views (19)
The issue is also about surface traffic. People accessing the airport create lots of CO2 and NO2 just by driving to get their planes. If we purpose built a new greener airport, hooked it into a high speed european rail network and put pressure on Airbus and Boeing to get radical in their aircraft design, then we might get something that's compatible with our inevitable low carbon future.
- Rich, Richmond
Let's be clear on this - more runways = more planes and vehicle journeys = more pollution. If there were any super clean planes on the drawing board, they won't replace existing fleets for about 30 years. Planes don't need to circle airports if fewer people fly. We do not NEED to fly. We do need to breathe. People living near Heathrow inhale levels that will not be permitted in 2010 - unless the government persuades the EU to make London and Heathrow a special case. Airport workers inhale even higher levels. I'm sure that all 50 protesters did their homework on climate change before they risked arrest with this action. They clearly did not intend to reach the runway (it was closed for maintenance) and did not resist being removed. No one was hurt just inconvenienced. In years to come, the same people who were using cheap air tickets will be asking why this government didn't do something about climate change sooner.
- Save Sipson, Harlington
IF one does not wish people to travel, or for travel to become far more expensive: build nothing new.
After a few years of full capacity flights/airfields, and long long lead time for reservations to hold a precious high priced seat, the protesters themselves will find they are unable to travel as they'd wish and will begin to whine and cry about "fairness" and the need for "responsible development" of more capacity.
- Trunk, US
Anti aviation activists shouldn’t be mistaken for green campaigners. The former have one goal in mind and are driven by ideology. They would see the demise of aviation (2% of global CO2 emissions now and 3% by 2050 - independent UN figures) yet at the same time take for granted electricity (35%) and road/rail transportation (18%) which between them are responsible for over 50% of CO2 emissions.
I wonder how many campaigners benefit from heating their home in winter, from charging their mobile phones, or leaving on their computers to plan the next demo, before filling up with petrol to drive there.
Technology is helping to meet the climate change challenges, and to be so blindly focussed against a sector which has more than any other used technology to reduce emissions and noise is an unnecessary distraction.
- Justin Dubon, london, UK
The government needs to make it's mind up - either it's green or it isn't. My guess is that faced with the massive loss of tax income if we all stop flying and start using 'green' cars at 1p a mile - even as it doubles the natgional debt - is that it ain't!
- Paul, London
How about making them run more efficiently. For instance 2 weeks ago landing at Heathrow and the plane sits on the stand with engines running for about 20 minutes because there was NOBODY TRAINED TO CONNECT THE RAMP TO THE PLANE. Unbelievable.
- Roger, Surrey.
Some interesting maths here....but surely the point is that even though overall aviation is a small percentage it is almost completely discretionary and therefore the easiest to reduce. If the Government suggested power cuts 2hrs a day to reduce Co2 instead I know which I'd rather do without. Remember Labour have signed up for the European rules and this will start costing us real money soon.
- Mark, London
With a population increasing from 60 million to 70 million plus. The effective rate of co2 reduction would really need to be around 85% not 80%. It will not happen.
- Harry H, London UK
It was eery to see the reaction from passengers at the airport this morning - they seem to have no conception of how selfish short-haul flying is in an era of global climate change.
But of course the real blame is not to be dumped on individual passengers but on the government and industry which has encouraged so many people to fly and approved the expansion of Britain's airports. How can they possibly claim to reduce GHG emissions by 80% and expand an airport (as well as the coal industry) at the same time? Mind-boggling hypocrisy which is the result of making targets that you won't be around to enforce. Where's the 2010 target? Where's the 2011 target?
If it weren't for brave and selfless groups like Plane Stupid we would be largely unaware of the global picture. Rather than thanking them for our efforts, we should all join in and take similar action, wherever we live.
- Jonathan, Newcastle, Australia
This is such a onesided and biased argument.
The so called green geeks cling on to their beliefs that an unrestricted pollutive form of diesel travel by rail is acceptable but an environmentally regulated transport by air is not.
Who is kidding who? As more travel by rail than air, it makes sense to target the aviation sector to curtail its activities, as long as the car and the train remain sacrosanct. Afterall, selfinterest avoids us facing a study on CO2 emissions on these forms of transport.
And who needs them, as aviation is already the cause of a shattering 6.5% of CO2 emissions! The mob has spoken.
- Dan Willink, Luxembourg
I suppose the anti-terrorist police were too busy tailing members of her Majesty's opposition parties lest they uncover embarrassing "leaks" the Government were unlawfully hiding from the public to be involved in something as mundane as preventing protesters from taking over one of Londons biggest airports. Defend Labour's secrets or defend the Country? Its a no brainer I guess, when you are the "political police"!!!
- Robert, Dumbarton
This is a message to the GLA.BUILD THAMES ESTUARY AIRPORT!
- H.J.Jones, London UK
No more airport extension.Move Heathrow out after we have large 24 hrs running airport at Thames Estuary.
That's the right place.
- M.A.Rashid, Bristol, england
Those statistics don't make sense. If aviation is currently around 7% of CO2 emissions, and all others fall by 80%, it will naturally amount to a greater proportion of the whole, unless someone invents a jet engine based on something other than kerosene. In fact, my maths makes that, er, 35% of the new total. *That* would make sense: we're not going to achieve an 80% reduction unless we completely replace all fossil-fuel based electricity generation and automotive uses.
But it's kind-of inevitable that in the residual 20% are all the uses for which we can't think of a replacement.
Then again, without some very significant investment in technology, the 80% reduction isn't going to happen anyway.
- Andrew M, Oxford, England
Once again the NIMBYs strike a blow under the 'green' bandwagon.
The problem is not aircraft. The problem is dirty aircraft. If you set a carbon cap for each airport and require that expansion fits within that cap then any expansion by definition has to be greener.
The idea that you can't have aircraft that generate less pollution is precisely what the tree hugging nay sayers want you to believe. If you force the issue, technology will respond.
- Neil Wilson, Halifax, UK
What's happened to the CAA? Surely there is just too much aircraft flying through UK airspace for safety at the moment - any more and we can start expecting serious accidents! Sureley the CAA HAVE to step in and stop the government from extending ANY more airports in the country. This IS an island THERE IS NO MORE ROOM!!!
- John, Cheltenham UK
Question:
Does a plane, circling for 15-45 minutes in a holding pattern, queueing for landing, burn more fuel than 3 or 4 planes that come straight in to land on an extra runway...
Think about it...
And wouldn't the noise be reduced too, because the planes got out of the air quicker?
I'm not for or against either view, but no-ones done the math and written about a question like that so I'm still unsure whether more planes might actually be more green because it alleviates congestion. Just like an extra lane on the motorway might actually reduce emissions by letting cars keep moving.
- Neil, London, England
What a total waste of time and resources todays demonstration was at the end of the day people have to travel and all these so called green people seem to do is disrupt the ordinary folk and cost more money just think no aircraft could land or take off so what has that done for the environment all those aircraft circling Stansted airport
- Ray Fletcher, Southend Essex England
We need more and larger airports unless we want to halt the development of the free world. Especially in these times; if money is available for a project it should be allowed to proceed. If these protesters want to live somewhere where there are not as many big airports tell them to go and live in Namibia. Or if they really want to do something about emissions to help the environment then get them to start preasuring the automotive industry to move to hydrogen fuel cell production faster and stop relying on oil.
- Mark Atkins, Plymouth, UK
