• PLANS for a third runway at Heathrow airport have been ruled illegal by the Court of Appeal because government ministers did not adequately take into account the country’s stated commitments to tackle the climate crisis.

Well, at least someone is taking the climate crisis seriously, although Secretary of State Grant Shapps, spokesman for this “your cake and eat it” government clearly isn’t.

This is what he said in response to the decision: “Airport expansion is core to boosting global connectivity and levelling up across the UK. We also take seriously our commitment to the environment.”

In other words, it is business as usual, while we pay lip-service to the commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which thankfully is still far enough away to be someone else’s responsibility.

Sorry, Grant. The judges are right. It is your responsibility right now. In terms of building major infrastructure, 2050 is just around the corner.

If the 2050 commitment means anything at all, it needs a coherent national plan, one that quantifiably demonstrates how carbon neutrality is to be achieved by the said date and how any new infrastructure investment will move us towards, not away from, that target.

This government and its predecessors have made much of the assertion that the UK leads the world in progress towards compliance with the Paris Agreement.

This may or may not be true, but, to the extent that it is, it is mainly due to the fact that recent governments have ridden on the back of a previous long-term decision to abandon coal (carbon) in favour of gas (hydro­carbon) fired power stations.

Efficiency savings and the transfer to hydrocarbons reduce, but do not eliminate carbon emissions. The early easy gains are almost over.

For the next steps in the elimination of carbon emissions, we need a detailed plan with measurable, staged deliverables, not Micawberesque hopes that someone somewhere, probably in America or China, will invent something to capture carbon dioxide.

It’s not as if the public would not be supportive of such a plan. Evidence suggests that a majority of the British people is ready to take steps to reduce its carbon footprint, but it needs help from the government.

It needs support to manage down its energy consumption in the form of things like home insulation, electricity from non-carbon sources and radically improved public transport (not airports).

Many experts believe that 2050 is already too late for net zero carbon emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change, but, for the time being at least, that is our commitment. The judges’ ruling places a clear duty on our government to act accordingly.

PAUL ELLIOTT
Islington Green Party