ATW Daily News

UK environment czar looking at limiting holiday trips to save CO2

Monday February 9, 2009

The UK's so-called "environment czar" last week raised the possibility of rationing air travel, limiting UK citizens to just a few vacation trips abroad by air per year in order to reduce the impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Adair Turner, chairman of the independent Committee on Climate Change that advises UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, made the proposal before Parliament's Environmental Audit Select Committee on Feb. 5. In remarks widely reported by UK media, Turner said, "We will have to constrain demand in an absolute sense with people not allowed to make as many journeys as they could in an unconstrained manner."

The proposal was strongly condemned by FlyingMatters, a UK-based coalition of airlines, airports, aerospace manufacturers and other aviation- and tourism-related groups. "One always suspects with these half-baked proposals that the people who put them forward really intend them to apply to ordinary people, many of whom have only recently gained access to air travel, rather than to themselves," the organization said in a statement.

Turner's remarks came as a report from the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed that the UK government spent £18.5 million ($26.9 million) on flights last year, a figure that does not include travel by the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, according the Daily Mirror.

by Perry Flint

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