Committee On Climate Change Calls for Aircraft Emissions Limit

It now seems that aviation CO2 emissions will have to be capped in order for the UK to reach its goals. Although this was something that the UK government knew from the start, new reports now suggest that the cap will have to be a lot lower than first thought.

The Committee on Climate Change has now said that Aviation CO2 emissions will have to be capped by not allowing the aviation industry growth to exceed 60 percent. This is the only way that the government will be able to reach its target on limiting aviation emissions.

All departing and arriving flights in developing countries will have to be subject to this cap. On top of this, rail will need to be pushed as an alternative to short haul flights. However, this is something that the airline industry does not want to hear at all.

The report from the Committee on Climate Change said that, ideally, all aviation CO2 emissions would be capped. However, the fact is that the government has set its own limits on CO2 emissions. The UK government would like its 2050 levels of CO2 emissions to match that of what was seen in 2005. In order to do this, the cap on new flights will have to be limited to a 60 percent growth and not the 200 percent like the government first predicted.

However, the report also shows that, without a big shift in rail for domestic travel, the target will still be unachievable. This is because the aviation industry simply lacks the money and the technology to switch over their planes to offer a big enough improvement on CO2 emissions to help the government reach its goal.