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The rich should reduce the flight to ensure that poorer families can take sunny vacation abroad per year, said the director general of the statutory advisor to the United Kingdom climate.
Emma Pinchbeck said on Wednesday that the last climate change committee's advice to the government had been designed to protect the “annual family holidays in a sunny place like Spain”.
On the other hand, high income travelers should aim to take a less flight per year, “rather than taking this low-income household flight,” she said in an evidence session in the House of Lords.
The latest councils of the committee to ministers set a limit for emissions during the period from five years to 2040 to help the United Kingdom on the right track to achieve its legally binding objective to achieve zero net emissions by 2050.
This advice highlighted the importance that consumers take responsibility for reducing their own carbon footprints. This includes by switching to heat pumps and electric cars when heating systems or cars have reached the end of their lives.
Eating less meat and flying less often were other “smaller but important contributions” that consumers could bring, noted the committee.
Pinchbeck, a former Lobbyist from the British energy industry, refused to comment on Wednesday when they asked him about work support for plans to extend Heathrow airport. But she said that she expected the government “could” consult the CCC on the airport extension project in the future.
The modeling of the committee showed in February that aviation could represent 5% of the reductions in the United Kingdom's emissions by 2040, and that reflecting the cost of decarboning in the price of a plane ticket could help to achieve it. This could add £ 150 to the price of a London flight in Alicante in Spain and add £ 300 to a London return plane ticket to New York.
Pinchbeck also said on Wednesday that she had written to all parties, including reform and conservatives, to provide advice on her latest carbon budget.
There was a “remarkable coherence” in public support for climate action, although it fell as the cost of living increased, she said.
Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch declared in a speech last month that the damage to the zero-zero objective of the United Kingdom would be “impossible” without “going bankrupt or the country”.
The committee has consulted a representative panel of citizens while developing its recommendations. The panel has expressed a preference for reductions in flight demand from those who fly frequently, business flights and the use of private jets, he said.
Airlines have undertaken to reach Net Zero by 2050, largely by switching to cleaner fuels. But these “sustainable aeronautical fuels” are expensive and rare.
“We need more targeted political support to help aviation to go to Net Zero, in particular on the scale of SAF moves and greenhouse gases and motivated by chancellor's commitment to the sustainable growth of aviation, rather than blunt measures that seek to discourage air trips for any cohort,” said Tim Alderslade, Managing Director of Airlines UK.
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