Why did GALBA take the government to court? Because the Jet Zero Strategy is a climate con
30th April, 2025
Author: Nick Hodgkinson, Chair of GALBA
On 1-4 April 2025, two judicial review legal cases against the government’s Jet Zero Strategy were heard in the High Court. The challenges were brought by the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA) and the climate charity Possible.
GALBA is a group of concerned citizens in West Yorkshire. We come from a range of backgrounds and from across the political spectrum. It was through our campaign opposing the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport that we first uncovered the flawed framework that is the Jet Zero Strategy.
GALBA believes that the measure of a responsible government is how well it protects its citizens from threats to their health and prosperity. Apart from all out nuclear war, we know with grim certainty that climate breakdown is the most severe threat to our society and our economy – and, in fact, to the whole of human civilisation. Therefore, every government policy, for every sector, should be judged on how reliably it reduces the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
The Jet Zero Strategy fails that test.
It depends heavily on alternative fuels and speculative new technologies that either barely exist, or cannot be scaled up to the quantities needed within a climate-relevant timescale. What’s worse, the strategy expressly excludes measures to limit the growing demand for flying, even though right now that is the only truly reliable way to cut aviation’s greenhouse gases. And we do need to cut them right now.
Instead, Jet Zero supports the expansion of flying.
The government’s own expert advisers on the Climate Change Committee have repeatedly warned against allowing an unfettered growth of passenger numbers, calling for demand management measures to control and limit the aviation industry’s emissions. In 2023, the CCC described Jet Zero as a ‘high risk’ approach to cutting greenhouse gases.
‘High risk’. Take a moment to consider the big implications of those two small words.
Aviation is expected to be the largest source of greenhouse gases in the UK by 2050, even with progress on alternative fuels and new technologies. Surely we should not be gambling on how we decarbonise flying? Of course, aviation is not solely responsible for climate change, nor will cutting its emissions alone be enough. Yet it is generally accepted that aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise.
So policies to reduce the emissions caused by flying really matter.
Yet the government persists in promoting the expansion of airports, which can only mean a rise, not a reduction, in emissions. Despite the frequent use of the word ‘sustainable’ by the aviation industry and ministers, well over 99% of the fuel used to fly planes is still fossil kerosene and that is unlikely to change much anytime soon. The Jet Zero Strategy itself is littered with the words ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’, acknowledging that many of its proposed techno-solutions may never work out in reality and even if they do, it will be a long time before ‘guilt free’ flying is a reality.
The trouble is, we don’t have time – we need to cut greenhouse gases right now.
GALBA believes we need more than a wing and prayer to stop aviation’s growth coming at the price of wrecking our climate. The extreme weather impacts of climate change are becoming more visible, and more serious, every year and those impacts are harming the poorest first and worst – people who most likely have never set foot on a plane. It’s also unbelievably unfair on our children and their children to allow aviation’s climate problem to get worse before we have any proven, scalable solutions.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging! And we are in a deep climate hole.
Jet Zero was published in 2022 by the then Conservative Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps. GALBA had hoped the incoming Labour government would see sense and drop the strategy. Sadly, that has not happened, so at the start of April, we travelled from Leeds to London to attend the High Court hearing of our judicial review challenge. Outside the court, we sent this message to the Chancellor, Leeds MP Rachel Reeves, who is the new cheerleader for airport expansions:
Rachel, you once said you wanted to be the first green chancellor. That’s a fantastic ambition and we applaud you for it. You’re right, we really can build a better world and a safer future. But to do that, you must pay attention to what the best scientific advice is telling you. Right now, the only reliable way to cut emissions from flying is to fly less – not more.”
Our lawyers had a rather more complex message for the judge at the High Court hearing. Possibly our most important legal argument is set out briefly below and a summary of the others can be seen in this article on Cornerstone Barristers website.
We argued that Grant Shapps failed to carry out a lawful consultation on the Jet Zero Strategy for two reasons:
- he had a ‘closed mind’ on the whole possibility of allowing demand management measures
- because he was so determined not to allow demand management, he did not ‘conscientiously consider’ the hundreds of consultation responses that called for precisely such measures.
During the course of preparing for the case, a DfT document emerged on which Grant Shapps had written, prior to publishing Jet Zero, that he would “never” allow demand management measures to be included in the strategy.
“Never” is a strong word and a long time. To the layperson, this seems to support our argument that the Transport Secretary unreasonably denied the public an opportunity to comment on the only measure that can reliably reduce aviation emissions – limiting demand – and he failed to properly consider the many responses that recommended demand management.
We don’t expect the judge’s decision to be issued for four, five or more months because there are many complex legal matters to consider. In the meantime, GALBA will continue our campaign to stop the expansion of Leeds Bradford and all other airports.
This blog was written by Nick Hodgkinson, who is the Chair of the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport. www.galba.uk
The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the AEF.