Decarbonising Aviation

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), my constituency neighbour, on securing this really important debate. As her constituency neighbours mine, I obviously share many of her concerns about the flightpath, Heathrow expansion and the impact that unrestrained aviation growth might have on the health and welfare of people—not just my constituents, but people across the country.

I can probably do no better than to illuminate further some of the points that the hon. Member has already made so well. I will start with the Government’s jet zero strategy for aviation. She ably pointed out how the delivery of jet zero depends so heavily upon the development of new technology. As she said, what will we do if that technology is not developed? It seems very clear to me, and indeed it was recommended by the Climate Change Committee, that alongside the technological development that we all want to see, either of hydrogen engines or some other form of technology, we really must see some demand management of our airspace, of flights and of aviation.

The last time I had the opportunity to raise this matter with the Prime Minister and to ask him what he wanted to do about the ANPS, I asked him directly if he would amend it to rule out Heathrow expansion. I was very disappointed that he said it was “a private matter”. I do not think that it is a private matter. For all the reasons that the hon. Member for Putney laid out, it is of the utmost importance for everybody across this country that if we are serious about getting to net zero, and if jet zero is going to be a part of that, demand management for aviation has to play a role, because we cannot just depend on the development of new technology. The very first thing we must do, before anything else, is to rule out expansion at Heathrow airport, so I join the hon. Member for Putney and many other MPs—not just across west London, but across the country—in once more asking the Minister to review the ANPS.

However, I am not pessimistic about the possibility of developing new technologies. I have had some really interesting conversations with people who work in this space, and it seems to me that the prospect of hydrogen powering aircraft in the future is not just a very real possibility, but is actually happening. I have also heard tell of electric flights, and have been invited to go on one. I have politely declined so far. I would like that technology to be a little more developed first—I have heard about those heavy batteries.

It seems to me that there is a great opportunity here for the UK to be right at the front of transport technology. We are a developed economy; we are an island, for whom international travel is critical; and we have the technology, the engineering capability and the will to do this. I believe that decarbonised aviation, alongside many of the other technologies that we are developing to meet the challenge of climate change, can be at the forefront of delivering the green jobs that will be so essential to our sustainable economy in the near future.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case about the jet zero strategy. Does she agree that that strategy is overly dependent on carbon offsets, and that increasingly, climate scientists are pointing out that carbon offsetting is actually very limited, given that all sectors in all countries need to get to real zero and there are limitations on how much carbon dioxide forests can absorb? Instead of playing accounting games, we should be treating the climate emergency as a real emergency.

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. More and more, I hear people talking about adapting to climate change instead of tackling it, and I am really concerned that people are doing exactly that, or thinking about exactly that: operational solutions to enable us to carry on exactly as we are, rather than tackling the problem at its root. This is not just about climate change; it is about biodiversity in all its forms, and it is so important that we come up with solutions that radically reduce carbon, rather than push it elsewhere and pretend it does not exist.

To sum up, the technological possibilities and what they might mean for our economy and skilled jobs right across the country are really exciting, but the Government must publish a proper strategy for how they plan to get there. If they want to prioritise hydrogen, we should make sure that we focus on green hydrogen, and on making sure that the production of hydrogen continues to be as carbon-free as possible. However, what I really want is for the Government to pursue a strategy of reducing demand alongside developing those technologies, and to take the opportunity offered to us by covid—the enforced changes to working patterns, and the facility we have all now gained for using Zoom for all manner of things, including parliamentary debates—to think about our approaches to travel, to really prioritise the travel that is necessary and to think seriously about how we are going to decarbonise aviation.