Green taxes not being spent wisely, claim aviation experts
Thursday, 12 Nov, 2009
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Three senior players in the aviation and sustainable travel arena have called on the world’s governments to stop throwing environmental tax revenues into the general pot and start reinvesting them in green solutions.
In a climate that has seen much hostility towards the UK government for its huge APD hikes this month and more next November, BAA Stansted’s head of environment Dr Andy Jefferson, Emirates divisional senior vice-president commercial operations worldwide Richard Vaughan and Manchester Metropolitan University’s professor of sustainable aviation Dr Callum Thomas told a WTM seminar that they were concerned these funds were ill-directed.
Said Dr Jefferson: “The UK Airport Operators Association did a paper last week on the APD and its impact. It showed tax recovered from APD was £806 million in 2001/2 and in 2007/8 it was £1.99 billion. My concern is that this money is going into lots of different government pots – the banks too probably – and not being put back into helping the aviation industry find a solution to the Co2 emissions crisis.”
Dr Thomas added: “Globally, governments are aiming to reduce Co2 emissions by 50% and in developed economies those governments need to reduce emissions by 80%. And all the time emissions are going up as we struggle to find a solution. We are simply not developing the technology fast enough to offset our emissions right now. Our governments need to reinvest all the emission tax money they are getting into finding a solution.”
Emirates’ Vaughan added: “I know that some money is being reinvested in this area but I also think some of the money goes elsewhere.”
Dr Thomas said: “If we do not solve the technology solution then we will not enjoy the global mobility that we do today. Many of the developing countries that rely on aviation-based tourism will not enjoy that economic input either. We have about 50 to 60 years left of useable oil on this planet. This is how long we have left to deal with this issue.”
By Dinah Hatch
Dinah
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