Including flights abroad in the UK’s climate target is a huge step forward
This post is by Greg Archer and Matt Finch of Transport & Environment.
If holiday makers ignore the cost of flights they quickly max-out their credit cards and create a cash crisis. If countries omit their international aviation (and shipping) emissions from their national carbon budgets they run the risk of overshooting their climate targets and contribute to frying the planet. So the UK’s decision to include our international flights and shipping emissions in its sixth carbon budget is not just good accountancy, it is a huge step forward towards limiting these pernicious, invisible and, to date, largely unmanaged emissions.
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This post is by Darren Shirley, chief executive of Campaign for Better Transport
The government’s policy giving the green light to Heathrow expansion and establishing the need for more airport capacity in the south east was ruled unlawful by the Court of Appeal on climate grounds last month. This ruling follows years of work by the legal team at Friends of the Earth (myself included), along with our external solicitors at Leigh Day, and barristers (David Wolfe QC at Matrix Chambers, Peter Lockley at 11KBW and Andrew Parkinson at Landmark Chambers). And, of course, the absolutely tireless work, campaigning and commitment from local residents who are the unsung heroes of the piece. 
I have been working in Victoria, London, for the past three years. The buildings, the corner shops and the pubs have roughly stayed the same in this period but I’ve noticed a marked change in something else. Electric vehicles and chargers have started to appear on the streets, pavements and lampposts. Teslas, Leafs and Zoes are now gliding around quietly, with no tailpipe emissions. The direction of travel for Britain’s cars is clear, it is clean and electric. 
This post is by Greg Archer, UK director at 
This post is by Greg Archer, UK director at Transport and Environment.
Britain’s automotive industry faces a moment of reckoning. Brexit threatens to disrupt its highly sophisticated ‘just in time’ operations while pressure to cut air pollution and go electric risks stranding investment in factories designed for the fossil fuel age. 
