Greens to call for "No New Runways" Bill Motion calls on Howard and Blair to live up to their recent speeches on climate change - and support the Air Traffic Bill. 14th October Next week's Green Party conference is expected to urge Tony Blair and Michael Howard to live up to their recent statements on the need to tackle climate change, by supporting the Air Traffic Emissions Reduction Bill which was passed by the House of Lords in March 2004. The Bill - sometimes called the "No New Runways" Bill, as its most obvious immediate impact would be to undermine the case for any major airport expansions in the UK - was written by the Green Party and steered through the House of Lords this year by Green Party peer Tim Beaumont. It would require the government to achieve a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions from the aviation sector by 2050. Lord Beaumont said today: "Tony Blair and Michael Howard have both expressed grave concerns recently about climate change. Mr Blair said aviation would be contributing a quarter of our emissions by 2030. Mr Howard said Labour was ducking the issue of aviation emissions. Yet neither has revised his policies for expanding the aviation industry. "One cannot pretend to be serious about climate change and still champion the expansion of aviation." The Greens are seeking a meeting with Tony Blair to discuss the urgent need for cross-party cooperation on tackling climate change. The Air Traffic Emissions Reduction Bill may be accessed via: www.publications.parliament.uk

Greens seek further meeting at Number Ten
20th Sep 2004

The Green Party is seeking a renewal of dialogue with 10 Downing Street over the climate crisis.

Almost exactly four years ago, leading Greens met with Tony Blair's environment advisers in an unprecedented meeting at Number Ten.

"It was a fascinating meeting, but everything we said has been ignored. We pointed out the links between roadbuilding and climate change, between airport expansions and climate change, and Tony Blair's personal adviser on transport policy told us that everything we proposed would be 'politically unacceptable'. But today the public is far more aware of the climate crisis, so the political landscape in that respect is not the same. We believe the government can implement Green policies now if it wants to."

Missing opportunities

The UK is missing all sorts of opportunities to reduce emissions, said Whitelegg, not least in the realm of transport. He commented: "We're seeing more ridiculous road schemes now than in the days of Brian Mawhinney and Nicholas Ridley - I mean, a motorway parallel to the M6 is the height of nonsense in many respects, but not least in terms of encouraging CO2 emissions.

"And tripling the size of our aviation industry is entirely incompatible with any meaningful attempt to tackle global warming.

"If Tony Blair now understands how critical the climate crisis is, and if Margaret Beckett now believes the UK might have a Siberian-type climate by 2020 (1), then there's no time to lose.

"We want to get Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett in the same room and spell out what we think they need to do to be serious about climate change."

Last week the Green Party laid down a 12-point climate change challenge to the government - against which Tony Blair's speech scored zero.

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