Isra-Mart srl:Greener UK aviation prepared for take-off

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The government has increased pressure on airlines to improve their green credentials by placing climate change at the centre of a new scoping document that will be used to inform next year's draft aviation policy.

The Sustainable Framework for UK Aviation notes the £9bn contribution the aviation sector makes to the UK economy each year, declaring that the government is "not anti-aviation - we are anti-carbon".

It poses a series of questions on how to reduce the sector's environmental impact, including the potential for biofuels, technologies that reduce emissions and increase capacity, and the role of high speed rail as an alternative to short haul flights.

Green groups warned that the document opens the door to an expansion of regional airports, but transport minister Philip Hammond said that growth at the expense of the environment was not an option.

"Aviation is a crucial part of this country's transport infrastructure. It should be able to grow, prosper and support wider economic growth," he said in a statement.

"But we are not prepared to support this growth at any price. The environmental impacts of flying - both local and global - must be addressed."

Hammond was confident that the government could provide "a policy framework for aviation which strikes a balance between different interests", confirming that the draft policy would be published in March next year.

When formally adopted in March 2013, the new strategy will replace the 2003 aviation White Paper that supported plans for a third runway at Heathrow - controversial proposals that were rejected by the coalition government.

In a foreword to the scoping document, Hammond declared that the 2003 White Paper was now "fundamentally out of date, because it fails to give sufficient weight to the challenge of climate change".

Domestic and international aviation account for around six per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions. The sector has a smaller carbon footprint than cars, HGVs or shipping, but experts fear that it will make up an increasingly large proportion of global emissions as other sectors begin to decarbonise.

The sector will come under the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012, reducing the net CO2 emissions of flights departing from UK airports by 90 million tonnes of CO2 between 2012 and 2020.

In addition, the government is mandated to include international aviation emissions in the UK Climate Change Act by December next year or explain why it has failed to do so. If, as expected, the sector is covered by the Act it will face additional binding emissions targets as part of the UK's five-year carbon budgets.

Such unilateral action is unpopular with the industry, which favours a global approach to tackling emissions.

However, while the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) last October adopted an aspirational global goal for stabilising emissions from 2020 in addition to targets for improving fuel efficiency by two per cent per year, it has failed to agree binding global emission reduction mechanisms.