Cairns, S

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July/August 2004  Town & Country Planning 215Hence, for those who believe that thethreat of climate change is real, addressingair travel surely has to be a priority. However,the reality is that aircraft emissions are notincluded in the Kyoto commitments. In starkcontrast to petrol, aviation fuel is subject toneither duty nor VAT in most countries(although the USA has some taxes on fuel fordomestic aviation). And, in the UK, instead ofincreasing airport taxes (passenger servicecharges) or air passenger duty to try toreduce demand, we’re planning to build newrunways and improve the efficiency of airportoperations to accommodate (and, accordingto some analysts, stimulate) increasing growth.Hillman and Fawcett further highlight thatthere is no VAT on airline tickets or newaircraft, and state that, in the UK, the hiddenvalue of all these subsidies is variouslycalculated at between £6 billion and £9billionper year.These are not, of course, originalarguments, and have been put forward by,among others, the Aviation EnvironmentFederation,4 the Institute for Public PolicyResearch,5 the Royal Commission onEnvironmental Pollution,6 and, most recently,the Sustainable Development Commission.7Different ways of increasing aviation costshave been proposed, including increasingtaxes, introducing emissions charges, andauctioning airport landing slots to the highestbidder.In theory, at least, the need for increasedcharges is also recognised by the UKGovernment, the European Union (EU), andthe International Civil Aviation Organisation.However, it is unclear whether this‘recognition’ will ever translate intomeaningful action.The House of Commons EnvironmentalAudit Committee has been hauling theGovernment over the coals for its aviationstrategy in a series of increasingly criticalreports.8,9 Its third report of the 2003-04session states that ‘despite protestations to thecontrary, it is abundantly clear that the aviationWhite Paper adopts a ‘predict and provide’approach’, and ‘the DfT, in conjunction with theTreasury, could have used economic instrumentsmore to moderate the forecast increase ingrowth and to send out a long-term signal tothe aviation industry’.Its seventh report of the 2003-04 sessionstates more strongly that ‘aviation policyremains the most glaring example of the failureof Government to put sustainable developmentat the heart of policy making’ and it highlightsthat ‘the growth proposed in aviation – even ona constrained basis – would wreck theaspirations [of the Energy White Paper]’.However, despite these arguments, even thiscommitted group states (in the SelectCommittee’s third report) that ‘we areemphatically not arguing for… pricing peopleoff planes’.A key issue is – why not? One reasongiven is that 50 per cent of the UKpopulation currently don’t fly, and so, toensure we become a socially inclusive society,it is important to reduce prices so that theycan. Quite apart from the counter-argumentthat cheaper prices may simply encourageexisting air travellers to fly more, thisargument can be reversed, to highlight thatthis is one area where increasing costs wouldbe socially fair, since it would hit the richesthardest.Moreover, if you argue (as the SelectCommittee does) that technicalSAVING THE PLANET –WHERE TO START?IN THE MAY EDITIONof Town & CountryPlanning, Mayer Hillmanintroduced his latestbook, written with TinaFawcett, about How WeCan Save the Planet.1 Init, they describe the problem of climatechange and the falsity of assumptions thatthere is a ‘technical fix’, and argue that thebest way forward is a global system oftradable carbon rations. I believe theirarguments about the need for change. Iendorse their sentiments about theimportance of a socially equitable method.My first priority for action would be airtravel. Specifically, why haven’t we madeflying more expensive? According to Hillmanand Fawcett’s calculations, on average, as anindividual, air travel currently accounts for justover a third of all our carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions in the UK. This calculation takesinto account that air travel emissions may beparticularly damaging, partly because theyare made directly into the upper atmosphere.According to a 1999 report from theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,2the impact of aviation emissions may be twoto four times greater than that from CO2alone. Air travel emissions are also growingfast, with, for example, the Aviation WhitePaper predicting that UK air travel will doubleor treble by 2030.3 Meanwhile, in socialequity terms, air travel is primarily the preserveof rich, developed countries. Direct measuresto reduce air travel would therefore impinge(fairly) on countries which are currentlyresponsible for the greatest share of CO2emissions, and could address one of the mostsignificant sectors of emissions production.Getting Somewhere Sally CairnstSally Cairnst216 Town & Country Planning  July/August 2004improvements in emissions controls will beinsufficient to offset increasing growth, itclearly becomes impossible to achieve bothgoals. Either you give everyone the right to aholiday on the Costa del Sol, or you tackleclimate change – according to their ownassessments, it is not possible to do both.I should perhaps, here, admit to being ageographer who loves travel. I have listenedto Mayer Hillman’s lectures for years and stillfind it difficult to decide to make a unilateralsacrifice of my holidays abroad. Partly, the issueis ‘my decision won’t make enough difference’.Hillman and Fawcett identify this as a classic(and non-acceptable) excuse: they may beright, but that does not stop it being true.The reality is that the structure of airlinepricing does affect demand. When ‘Londonto Rome’ (currently advertised on Ryanair at£5.99) is cheaper than ‘London to Brighton’(a standard day single on Southern trains iscurrently £15.90), it becomes a rationaleconomic decision (not even necessarily apreference) to travel further and further, andthere is little hope that emissions will decline.According to research by Dargay and Hanly,10real reductions in the price of air tickets wereprobably responsible for about 40 per cent ofthe growth in leisure air travel by UK residentsbetween 1989 and 1998.It is not obvious why curbing air travel isso far off the UK political agenda. Budgetairlines hardly represent the mainstay of theBritish economy. According to the Civil AviationAuthority, in 2002, UK airlines worldwideemployed 87,433 people,11 representingabout 0.3 per cent of those in employmentin Britain. The Department for Transport(DFT) website claims that the UK aviationindustry employs considerably more than this(200,000 direct jobs, 600,000 indirect),representing 2.9 per cent of jobs in total. Thisis, of course, much more significant, but byno means the overwhelming proportion ofall employment.Tourism does bring in significant cash,but, on the other hand, British tourists spendlarge amounts of money abroad. Consequently,if air travel was made more expensive,presumably some of the lost tourist incomewould be offset by greater domestic spending.Given that, according to the Aviation WhitePaper,3 there are 25million foreign visitors tothe UK each year, while UK residents makeabout 60million visits overseas, and giventhat Dargay and Hanly’s work shows that airtrips abroad by UK residents are increasingfaster than air trips to the UK by foreignresidents, there could actually be significanteconomic gains.In terms of social acceptability, of courseno-one is going to like it if prices increase.However, until recently, air travel was muchmore expensive and going abroad for yourholiday was seen as a luxury anyway.Consequently, making air travel more expensivewill probably be much less controversial than,say, hikes in petrol prices, since, rightly orwrongly, petrol is seen as a more essentialcommodity.In terms of world development, the roleof tourism in helping developing countries tobecome richer is important, and significantreductions in such activity would undoubtedlyhit hard. However, where the price ofincoming ‘hard currency’ is increasing heat-waves, sea level rises, floods, droughts, forestfires, species extinction, and the spread ofinfectious disease, many developing countriesmay feel that it is not a good long-termbargain.According to a recent World HealthOrganisation report,12 over 150,000 peoplein developing countries are now dying eachyear from the effects of global warming,including the spread of malaria, malnutrition,extremes of heat and cold, and flooding.(Problems are, of course, occurring in thedeveloped world too, with, for example,15,000 deaths in France attributed to lastsummer’s heat-wave – a potential outcomeof climate change.)After tourism, business meetings representanother major category of air travel. However,technological advances have increased thealternatives to actually travelling. Forthcomingresearch for the Department for Transportexamines the potential for teleconferencing,and highlights that companies which havechosen to adopt it as mainstream practice havealready reduced business travel by between10 per cent and 30 per cent.13 According toRoy and Filiatrault,14 assessments of thefeasibility of teleconferencing in the mid-1990s led to the cancellation of plans for asecond Boston airport (although it is unclearwhether, subsequently, sufficient measureswere put in place to actually stimulate andsupport teleconferencing development).As with all kinds of tele-options, it isprobably unfeasible and undesirable to thinkof replacing all face-to-face meetings, but itmust be possible to replace a considerablenumber. Moreover, many business travellersmight welcome the change, given recurrentcomplaints about the ennui of spending timeaway from home in a succession of faceless,forgettable airport terminals and hotels.The transportation of goods, the thirdmain sector of air travel, generates differentchallenges. However, it is very unclear thatmany products need to travel by air (ratherthan less energy-intensive modes on land orsea), or that, in some cases, they could notbe substituted with more local goods. Ashighlighted in the February edition of Town& Country Planning, recent research onfood15 has emphasised that ‘seasonal andindigenous’ food should be prioritised, andthat, for example, Government healthcampaigning promoting ‘Vitamin C rich air-freighted blueberries’ in place of locally grownproduce ‘does not represent joined-upthinking’.In some cases, the speed of airtransportation is used to try to grab marketshare – as demonstrated by Amazon.com’sdecision to charter 100 planes to transportHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fireso that itcould promise delivery a few hours after thebook was released. Apart, perhaps, for someshareholders of Amazon.com, would anyone’squality of life really have suffered if this hadnot been an option? And if, as a result ofcostlier air freight, Britain does suffer someloss of world trade, this might at least bepartially compensated by increasing internaldemand for British goods.However, as yet, it is unclear that thereare any future prospects of national orinternational action to increase air transportcosts. At Kyoto, aircraft emissions wereexcluded from national inventories becausethere was disagreement on how they shouldbe allocated. At EU level, one of the mosthyped measures in the European ClimateChange Programme is an ‘emissions tradingscheme’, due to start in 2005, where over12,000 energy-producing and energy-intensive organisations will be allocated an‘emissions allowance’ by member states, andwill be able to trade with each other, buyingor selling ‘emissions credits’. However, airtransport is not included in the scheme.Meanwhile, the UK Government’s view isthat the best way to tackle air transportemissions is to argue for the inclusion of theaviation industry in the second round of theemissions trading scheme from 2008.In theory, this might represent a goodsolution to the problem. However, there arevarious problems, as highlighted by theEnvironmental Audit Committee.8,9 First, it isunclear whether it will happen. The DFT hasreported that it is ‘ploughing a pretty lonelyfurrow’ in advocating this solution, and thereis significant opposition from some importantplayers. Moreover, even if the principle wereaccepted, agreeing emissions allocations islikely to be highly controversial, given theproblems at Kyoto. The Environmental AuditCommittee further highlights that, even ifimplemented, the price of carbon could then‘go through the roof’, meaning that thereSally CairnsThe glamour of air travel can be somewhatover-ratedwould need to be substantial political will tomaintain targets and enforce penalties fornon-compliance with allowance limits.In contrast, introducing an aviationemissions charge, auctioning airport slots, orincreasing the taxes on air tickets, airports,and/or aviation fuel seem like much simplersolutions, and, given the imminence andimportance of the global climate changethreat, we are missing a trick if we fail to trythe simple things now.The UK should make a clear change in itsown policies, and seek European action as aminimum. So what if America initially refusesto co-operate? Increased pricing acrossEurope would be sufficient to start making adifference. According to Dargay and Hanly’swork, over two-thirds of plane trips to andfrom the UK start or end in Europe anyway.(Moreover, given that the USA already hassome taxes on domestic aviation fuel, insome ways it would simply bring us in line.)The UK Government’s Chief Scientist,Professor David King, has stated that ‘climatechange is the most severe problem that we arefacing today – more serious even than thethreat of terrorism’.16 The Pentagon hasrecently advised George Bush that ‘because ofthe potentially dire consequences, the risk ofabrupt climate change… should be elevatedbeyond a scientific debate to a US nationalsecurity concern’.17 There is general consensusthat air travel is a significant contribution tothe problem. If flying really is costing theearth so dearly, it is madness not to be taxingthe sky. Increasing the cost of air travel is aviable, short-term policy that could make abig different fast. As a nation of explorers, weshould have the courage to boldly go intodifficult territory. If Tony Blair wants to beNotes1 M. Hillman and T. Fawcett: How We Can Save the Planet. Penguin Books Ltd, London, 20042 Special Report on Aviation and the Upper Atmosphere. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 19993 The Future of Air Transport. Cm 6046. Aviation White Paper. Department for Transport, London, 20034 B. Sewill: The Hidden Cost of Flying. Aviation Environment Federation, London, 20035 S. Bishop and T. Grayling: The Sky’s the Limit. Institute for Public Policy Research, London, 20036 The Environmental Effects of Civil Aircraft in Flight. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,London, 20027 Missed Opportunity: Summary Critique of the Air Transport White Paper. Sustainable DevelopmentCommission, London, 20048 Pre-budget report: Aviation Follow-up. HC 233-I. Environmental Audit Committee on Third Reportof Session 2003-04. House of Commons, London, 20049 Aviation: Sustainability and the Government Response. HC 623. Environmental Audit CommitteeSeventh Report of Session 2003-04. House of Commons, London, 200410  J. Dargay and M. Hanly: The Determinants of the Demand for International Air travel to and from theUK. Paper presented at 34th Universities’ Transport Studies Group Conference, Edinburgh, 200111  Transport Statistics Great Britain 2003. Department for Transport, Scottish Executive, and theWelsh Assembly. The Stationery Office, London, 200312  Climate Change and Human Health: Risks and Responses. World Health Organisation, Geneva, 200313  S. Cairns, L. Sloman, C. Newson, J. Anable, A. Kirkbride, and P. Goodwin: The Influence of SoftFactor Interventions on Travel Demand. Department for Transport, London (forthcoming)14  J. Roy and P. Filiatrault: ‘The impact of new business practices and information technologies onbusiness air travel demand’. Journal of Air Transport Management, 1988, 4, pp.77-8615  T. Garnett: Wise Moves: Exploring the Relationship between Food, Transport and CO2. Transport 2000Trust, London, 200316  D. King: ‘Climate change science: adapt, mitigate or ignore?’. Science 303, 9 Jan. 2004, pp.176-17717  P. Schwartz and D. Randall: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for US NationalSecurity. Report commissioned by the US Defense Department. Written Oct. 2003, released Feb. 2004remembered well by our children’s children,this is one issue he should fight for. nDr Sally Cairns is a Senior Research Fellow at the ESRCTransport Studies Unit at University College London. Shewishes to express grateful thanks to Marcus Enoch andGraham Parkhurst.July/August 2004  Town & Country Planning 217

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