Climate Impacts

Southend Airport has made a lot of its desire to emulate Southampton Airport, which has just under 2 million passengers a year. Southend is aiming for a similar number – about 60 times what they have now. Last year, Southend Airport emitted 850 tonnes of CO2 from departing aircraft, while Southampton emitted 48,528 tonnes. This is over 57 times as much as Southend.

Southend Council has signed the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change and has set itself a target of reducing carbon emissions in Southend by 20% by 2020. The national legislation, in the form of the Climate Change Act, sets a legally binding target of at least a 34% reduction by 2020 and the scientists tell us that we need to reduce UK-wide emissions by at least 42% by then.

Given all this, it would surely be reasonable to ask how Southend Council intends to meet its own target, let alone the government’s target or what actually needs to happen when they are supporting Southend Airport in its effort to increase its own emissions by 5700%.

Did you know?

The Aviation Environment Federation has calculated that aviation now contributes 4.9% of man-made climate impacts.

“But we’ll reduce emissions…”

The airport and its supporters have claimed that by providing flights to local people, they will actually reduce carbon emissions by stopping them driving to Stansted, Heathrow or Gatwick.

Jeremy Birch of Stop Bristol Airport Expansion has been looking into this issue as Bristol Airport make similar claims. People using a large airport further away rather than their smaller, more local one is known as “leakage” and for Bristol, Jeremy finds that:

If all of the leakage was stopped it might save 13,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide from cars per year, but if this caused even one extra daily scheduled flight then this would add over 14,000 tonnes of emissions. Stemming the leakage increases total greenhouse gas emissions

If this is true for Bristol Airport, which is already much larger than Southend Airport, offers a range of passenger services, and is much further from London, it will certainly be true of Southend.

The Climate Change Act

The Climate Change Act sets legally binding targets for reducing GHG emissions in the UK by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 and by at least 26% by 2020. It introduces:

  • a new system of carbon budgets set at least fifteen years ahead;
  • an independent Committee on Climate Change to advise on the best way to achieve these targets;
  • and provisions to introduce new GHG emission trading schemes;

The Act places a duty on the secretary of state to regularly report on the risks that the UK faces from climate change impacts and to prepare a programme for addressing these. The secretary of state may also direct public bodies, including local authorities, to report on how they are addressing the risks associated with climate change.

Further reading