AEF in the media, UN climate activities and our new critique of government forecasts
5th October, 2009
Our activities in the past two weeks have focussed on both noise and climate issues. On 23rd September Willie Walsh announced the airline industry’s pledge to halve aviation emissions globally by 2050. Jeff gave comment to the Today programme and Tim spoke on BBC Business. We’ve also been involved with two UN events on aviation and climate change, chairing a teleconference on aviation calculators and presenting at a UN webinar on carbon neutrality. And looking at the UK’s aviation emissions, Cait met with the Committee on Climate Change to discuss their forthcoming report on the government’s 2050 target for the sector.
On noise, we’ve met with the CAA and organisations including the National Parks Authority and Natural England to discuss how to develop policy on protecting tranquil places from aircraft noise and we’ve responded to inquiries about helicopters in rural Kent, the Heathrow noise action plan and light aircraft in County Durham.
New on our website, in addition to our comment on IATA’s 2050 pledge, is our response to a European Commission consultation on the future of transport, and an analysis of the DfT’s air passenger forecasts, which explains why we believe that – with a climate policy that goes out to 2050 but an airports policy that that finishes at 2030 – the government has started making some questionable assumptions.