Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said Chancellor Rachel Reeves support fora third runway at Heathrow airport is based on “the usual techno babble. You know, ‘sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes.’ These cannot deliver on scale and in timeline for the current aviation, let alone the growth in aviation.”
In an interview conducted before making a presentation at a January 30th public meeting in Glossop, England, Anderson went on to condemn the advice being given to Reeves, and her stance on climate change.
Either she was sufficiently ignorant to not be aware of this, and given she’s had lots of guidance and expertise and all the research expertise that she needs to lay her hands on to understand it, that is concerning. Or she’s been dishonest, but under both those, I think she’s not fit for office, if that’s what she thinks is appropriate. So either she can’t understand the issues well, I’m sorry, you need to get a handle on issues, or you’re not being honest with the population, and I think as an electorate, we should have, we expect should expect – this may be naive – I expect honesty and integrity. I don’t have to agree with them – to expect honesty, integrity of our elected officials. She seems, at the moment, I can see no other way but to say she’s failed on one of those which means she is not fit for purpose.
The interview covered a range of topics, and isl being released in installments. Part one, on the physical impacts we can expect is here. Part two, on “Team Mann vs Team Hansen” and the speed of recent warming is here. . It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson), and the URL of this page.
For more of Kevin’s work see Climate Uncensored,
Stay tuned for Monday’s blog post – is Kevin on the Climate Change Committee and its influence on government and academia.
Which brings us to yesterday, the Labour Chancellor, who, two years ago, said that she was going to be the first green – small g green – Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, came out and said that she favored Heathrow airport expansion, and the BBC coverage was helpfully saying things like, “Can sustainable aviation fuel and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?” And my simple response was, “FFS, no.” But we come to you, Kevin for more than “FFS, no.”
So, can sustainable, aviation fuels and electric planes make Heathrow’s third runway green?
Kevin Anderson 14:15
Well, on the question “Can the third runway be made green through technology”. – here I go back to both Mann and Hansen, and their respective timelines to deliver on Paris. And the answer is a categorical no.
But the answer is a categorical no for the existing aviation demand as well.
So it’s not just about any new aviation promoted and facilitated by the third runway. If you focus on the UK, aviation is quickly returning to about 10% of our national emissions. And as we try to cut the emissions from other sectors, then this proportion is only set to increase. The Government’s own Climate Change Committee envisages almost no change in aviation emissions out to 2050, and possibly beyond. Such an industry, at existing levels of emissions, is completely incompatible with our Paris commitments. The third runway is just a reinforcing nail in the Parisian coffin.
My concern with what Rachel Reeves, our Chancellor, has said, is that she’s simply parroting the techno babble that dominates so much of the climate debate. You know, “sustainable aviation fuel – SAF – and electric planes” These cannot deliver on scale and in a 1.5-2°C timeline for current aviation levels, let alone any growth in the sector. They are simply used as a ruse to allow business as usual to continue. Perhaps she was so ignorant of the technology limits and timeline constraints, that she was easily taken in by the techno-nonsense promoted by the industry and its paid-up shills – though if that was the case, it is concerning, as she has access to a wealth of expertise to truly understand the issues. Or, alternatively, she was simply been dishonest and deliberately misleading in claiming aviation growth can be aligned with our climate commitments. Either way, I’m left questioning whether she is fit for office; too unthinking to understand the issues or being dishonest with the public. It may be naive – but I expect honesty and intelligence from our elected officials – and on Heathrow and aviation our Chancellor failed on at least one of these.
But of course, she is being supported by Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and other short-term and sycophantic MPs who claim to have discovered new information that allows them to reconcile growth in a hugely high carbon sector with our climate commitments. Flying pigs perhaps … but not ‘sustainable aviation’ aligned with Paris!
Playing into their unscrupulous hands is the ruse of “net zero 2050”. This dodgy framing allows almost anything to be tolerated – as it simply hands the burden across the generations to our children. They, and their children are assumed to find ways to remove our carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in years and decades from now – so we can carry on with our lies and delusion. It is this scam that is locked into the Government’s Climate Change Committee’s UK ‘net zero 2050’ model, and indeed, many of the big international models about how fast we need to eliminate emissions. They have chosen to bequeath our children a legacy of deliberate failure, expecting future generations to deploy a planetary-scale carbon sucking machines, and all to keep today’s policies politically acceptable.
marc hudson 17:30
So does the net in net zero imply Negative Emissions Technology? See what I did there? Yeah,
Kevin Anderson 17:35
Yeah the net in net zero does imply that.
Unfortunately we use the ‘net’ term in two ways. In net zero, the net really refers to ensuring that at some point in the future whatever we are still emitting will be compensated be sucking an equivalent quantity of emissions out of the atmosphere. For example the Government’s Climate Change Committee (the CCC) assumes the UK will still emit around 30 million tonnes of fossil-fuel based CO2 in 2050 – mostly from aviation; – that’s more emissions per UK person in 2050 than the typical Kenyan emits today. To make this nonsense stack up, the CCC rely on the deployment of so-called negative emission technologies. Today this term (often shortened to NETs … hence the confusion with Net zero) just trips off our tongue as if these technologies were tried and tested at scale .
But as of today, they remain at such a small level that relative to our Paris commitments they’re little more than a unicorn story. Ok, a few very small and pilot schemes are operating, most as part of bioethanol production, but they are still capturing and storing less than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide each years, at the same time as we’re emitting around 38 billion tonnes of fossil fuel CO2, and another 3 or so billion from deforestation, agriculture, etc. Yet many ‘experts’, journalists and even some policymakers talk about NETs as if they are working at scale and are an unavoidable and major part of the future. However, in numerical reality today, they remain nothing more than a deliberate distraction from the urgent need to cut emissions now, and are certainly not a meaningful technology. Perhaps this will change … but almost two decades of enthusiastic inclusion of ‘negative emission technologies’ in models needs to be contrasted with how today NETs capture around 0.002% of all our carbon dioxide emissions – in other words, almost nothing. Set that against the four years of current global emissions before we blow through the carbon budget for 50:50 chance of not exceeding 1.5°C – if we haven’t already.
It is this untested and highly speculative future tech, at scale, that our Chancellor and a gaggle of sycophantic ministers and MPs are betting the house on – and all because of their dogmatic obsession with a failing growth growth growth model. The physics will continue, regardless of any political machinations. The climate impacts are already being felt across poorer low-emitting and climate vulnerable communities, mostly a long way from here and typically comprising people of colour. The Chancellor and others would prefer to sacrifice them, seeing their livelihoods and even their lives ripped apart, rather than make challenging decisions back in the UK – colonialism is alive and thriving in the UK parliament, and particularly on the Government’s front bench.
But let’s be clear, not only is the Government treating such communities as an annoying fly to be swatted, but they are showing similar levels of disdain for the wellbeing of our own UK children
See also
Paul Rogers writing recently for Open Democracy
