New Environmental Audit Committee report pours cold water on Government airport expansion plans
24th October, 2025
PRESS RELEASE: “You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole,” says AEF as it responds to the publication of a report from the Environmental Audit Committee that concludes that progress on reducing emissions from aviation is currently too slow to justify any increase in airport capacity, including at Heathrow Airport.
Published today, the report, ‘Airport Expansion and climate and nature targets,’ says that the risks of under-delivery on a number of aviation decarbonisation pathways have not been fully factored into assessments on how airport expansion will affect the UK’s ability to meet its legally mandated carbon budgets. The Committee argues that global SAF production is still too small to have confidence that it will deliver the lion’s share of expected reductions, and that carbon pricing is not yet driving down emissions: “The [Jet Zero] strategy relies on a far higher cost to industry to abate carbon emissions than are currently seen”.
The EAC suggests the government introduces fines or penalties if the aviation industry fails to meet Jet Zero targets, an idea that AEF welcomes.
If the expansion of several airports in the South East of London proceeds, the Committee emphasizes that an increase in the UK’s international aviation emissions is inevitable, and concludes unequivocally that this would jeopardize the UK’s economy-wide Net Zero by 2050 target.
The EAC report also pours cold water on the government’s relentless assertions that airport expansion will be a catalytic driver of wider economic growth. It states that “The then Aviation Minister, Mike Kane MP, when appearing before the Committee, could not direct us to any substantial economic analysis that supports the Government’s claim that airport expansion would lead to growth”. This conclusion is all the more jaw-dropping given that economic growth is the only justification being given for recent decisions to expand Luton and Gatwick airports.
AEF’s Policy Manager, Celeste Hicks, says:
It’s hard not to conclude from the half-hearted attempts by government to put serious analysis behind the claims that airport expansion will lead to economic growth, that they don’t really believe it themselves. The report shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the very significant climate and community costs of airport expansion are being balanced against economic arguments which appear to have been made on the back of a cigarette packet. We are sleep-walking into a Heathrow expansion project which has the potential to be a mega-fail on the scale of HS2.”
The EAC report also sheds light on the out-dated aviation policy landscape, and the lack of national strategic planning on airports capacity. It argues for the inclusion of cumulative assessments of the carbon impacts of all the expansion plans already agreed by this government, or being considered, such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stansted, Bristol and London City. It argues that the guiding policy document, the Airports National Policy Statement (ANPS), is not currently fit for purpose, and should have been reviewed before these projects were agreed; “We are also deeply concerned that, given a number of airport expansions will have been approved prior to the update (such as Gatwick), the Government is relying on an outdated policy framework which is inconsistent with its objectives”. The Committee also called for the updated ANPS to also include a target on the level of acceptable noise from flights at all the expanded airports, both individually and cumulatively.
For comment please contact celeste@aef.org.uk 07957915696