Reeves Pushing Ahead W. Growth At All Costs Plan, Including 3rd Heathrow Runway, W. Lip Service To Rail Improvements
Rachel Reeves has been accused by environmental experts of putting the climate at risk with high carbon projects including the expansion of Heathrow airport. The chancellor made airports the central focus of her plan for growth, despite having previously promised to be the first green chancellor and having extolled the benefits of green growth.
Environmental leaders have asked her to recommit to green growth, such as the renewable economy and green public transport, rather than expanded aviation and new roads. Dale Vince, the founder of Ecotricity and a major donor to the Labour party, said: “New runways are a mistake; we don’t need them. This is the old economy, it grew 0.1% last year while the green one grew 9%. This is where the biggest opportunity for growth is, and it’s sustainable in all senses of the word. That’s the right kind of growth.”
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Reeves did say the airport would not go ahead without meeting climate objectives: “We will then take forward a full assessment through the airport national policy statement. This will ensure that the project is value for money, and our clear expectation is that any associated surface transport costs will be financed through private funding, and it will ensure that a third runway is delivered in line with our legal, environmental and climate objectives.” However, the Climate Change Committee, the independent watchdog tasked with ensuring the UK meets its legally binding net zero target by 2050, said in its sixth carbon budget that there could be no new airport expansion unless there were significant reductions in carbon intensity in other areas of the economy such as road transport and agriculture. Otherwise, the emissions would overshoot what is required to keep the UK within its carbon targets.
The seventh carbon budget will be published next month, and some have said decisions on airport expansion should have waited until it was released. On Tuesday in parliament, the Green MP Siân Berry asked the transport minister Mike Kane: “Can the minister explain why we are hearing trailed announcements of multiple airport expansions, in the month before new advice from the Climate Change Committee is delivered? The committee could not have been clearer in previous reports that without a framework to manage aviation demand, we should not expand airports.” Research from the New Economics Foundation suggests airport expansions would in effect cancel out the carbon savings of the government’s clean power plan, and backbench Labour MPs have complained that new runways will bring air and noise pollution to their constituents.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/29/environmentalists-urge-reeves-to-rethink-plans-for-airports-and-roads