LOCAL EURO MP SUPPORTS CHECK ON AIR TRAVEL GROWTH

10.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 5th Jul 2006

Airports may be heaving with holidaymakers but MEPs have warned that the accelerating growth in air travel threatens to undermine Europe's attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Parliament has called for urgent action to force airline operators to pay towards the carbon dioxide emissions their planes emit.

Local Liberal Democrat Euro MP, Diana Wallis, said the growth in cheap air travel was an EU success story but which risked damaging consequences:

"The breaking up of national airline monopolies has meant that far more people than ever before have the opportunity to travel cheaply, but this phenomenal rate of growth threatens to wipe out all the CO2 savings made elsewhere. One major UK operator has said that they expect a 60% growth in passenger numbers over the next six years alone.

"I don't want to see an end to cheap air travel, but it must not come at the expense of future generations and the poor across the world.

"The message from the European Parliament is that airline operations can continue to expand, but only as fast as improvements in technology and better operating practices permit. Total carbon dioxide emissions must increase no further."

MEPs want the European Commission to set up a new emissions trading scheme specifically for the aviation sector. Inclusion within the existing scheme, they argue, would increase the costs of industry while effectively subsidising holiday travel.

Air transport contributes just 4% of current CO2 emissions but the volume has grown by 85% since 1990. There are also fears that emissions from aircraft at great height may affect cloud formation in the stratosphere, magnifying the global warming effects.

The measures overwhelmingly supported by MEPs yesterday in Strasbourg would be expected to increase average flight costs by less than £10 but would reward operators who invested in the most up to date technology.