DEATH KNELL OF HEATHROW EXPANSION
PRESS RELEASE
20 April 2021
For immediate use
DEATH KNELL OF HEATHROW EXPANSION
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, used a Downing Street Press Conference on Tuesday (20 April) to reconfirm his opposition to Heathrow expansion and offered no support whatsoever to the project going forward (1).
The PM stated his continuing opposition to Heathrow expansion on the day the Government adopted the Climate Change Committee’s advice on aviation emissions and announced even stricter emission reduction targets by 2035.
Mr. Johnson was asked (by Huffington Post’s Political Editor Paul Waugh) if the Government’s inclusion of aviation emissions into wider and legally binding targets to cut emissions by 78% by 2035, announced earlier in the day, would mean there would need to be cuts at regional airports if Heathrow expansion went ahead. This advice was given by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) when it provided its advice to Government (2).
Mr Johnson said that: “Heathrow…that’s a matter for the company concerned, it is a private matter. They’ve got to get it through and fund it and finance it themselves and my own views about that particular matter are well known. But that doesn’t mean that I am opposed to aviation.”
This clear dismissal of a third runway at Heathrow acts as a fresh signal that Boris Johnson’s Government’s aviation-related priorities are elsewhere, away from creating an even bigger mega-polluting hub airport.
Heathrow Airport is already the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the UK, emitting 20 megatons of CO2 per year which equates to around 60% of total UK aviation emissions. The CCC’s anticipates that the aviation sector will still be emitting 23MtCO2 in 2050, yet Heathrow expansion – in the form of a third runway would increase the airport’s emissions to 27MtCO2 per year.
Geraldine Nicholson from local campaign group Stop Heathrow Expansion, said:
“This is bold step and is a good news day in our campaign to stop Heathrow’s third runway.
“Aviation emissions were not included in our national emissions targets for too long and now act as yet another death knell for Heathrow airport in their crestfallen quest for expansion.
ENDS.
Notes:
Downing Street Press Conference remarks on Heathrow expansion made at 1726-1728, 20 April 2021.
Climate Change Committee advice on aviation expansion (page 11) https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-summary-Aviation.pdf