The UK government is planning to provide for a tripling of aviation movements - meaning we will fail to to meet our obligation to play a fair role in avoiding dangerous climate change. To achieve this it is rolling back local democracy.
Programme produced by Phil England for Climate Radio. http://climateradio.co.uk Please drop me an email to let me know if you rebroadcast this programme: phil [at] switch-online.co.uk
The UK government is planning to provide for a tripling of aviation movements - a move that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, The Tyndall Centre and the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee say is incompatible with our commitment to play a fair role in avoiding dangerous climate change. Not content with a weighted planning system, the government is proposing to speed up the implementation of major infrastructure projects which will lock us into a high carbon pathways in the future.
We speak to Brian Ross, economics advisor to Stop Stansted Expansion to find out how their campaign is going and if the government's arguments about the economic benefits of aviation have any basis in reality. And we hear from Paul da Silva, England Campaigns Co-ordinator at Friends of the Earth about the unprecedented new coalition that has come together to oppose the proposals in the government's Planning White Paper.
Finally we hear from Alan Simpson MP about why he will be standing down at the next election and why he thinks that leadership on climate change can now only be found outside Parliament.