Dear Sir Howard,
Many thanks for the public session in
Manchester yesterday, I am sure everyone had a great time. The tea
and coffee was very nice. When I saw the plate full of Danish
Pastries I though it was too good to be true, alas so it turned out
to be as as they weren't for me.
I am sure many in the audience may
have found your opening remark, “That you wanted the day to
tease out the issues on aviation's impact on climate change,”
apposite. Unfortunately, I find it just a bit difficult to know what
there is to tease out that is not glaringly obvious - atmospheric CO2
will exceed 450 ppm towards the end of this decade making runaway
climate change unavoidable, methane releases have started in the
Arctic and the ice cap is collapsing, heatwaves and storms are making
a mockery of hundreds of years of industrial progress, Syria is in a
climate change induced civil war and Egypt is following in its
footsteps and yes I could go on and on and on....But certainly the
last thing we would want is a pubic session on climate change spoiled
by the grubby facts on climate change.
So it was somewhat interesting to hear
Heathrow's sustainability director suggesting that all could be made
well in the world with a dose of new technology, biofuels and carbon
trading.
Just for the record in case it was not
noted, I did ask the Heathrow team to explain how new technology
would reverse the trend of increasing aviation emissions that has
existed since the Wright Brothers' first flight despite new
technology being introduced every year from then to now.
Again in case it was not noted, I
pointed out that Tesco dropped their campaign to be the UK's leading
supplier of biofuel after their complete failure to demonstrate how
it can reduce carbon emissions. I asked the Heathrow team to explain
what they know that Tesco don't. As the public session debated the
merits of biofuel, the last of the Indonesian rainforest is being
burnt down and the last of the Orang-utans are being cooked to a
crisp. Ignoring the science of climate change and burning every drop
of fossil fuels is stupid enough, but burning down the rainforest to
grow biofuel is orders of magnitude worse and aviation's plans would
accelerate this disaster.
Again in case it was not noted, I asked about Carbon Trading. The poor in our society are facing a triple whammy. The price of basic foods is rising as global warming reduces food production, biofuels are diverting food to fuel and carbon trading will price access to basic energy requirements out of reach. The growing wealth gap has already fuelled inner city riots in the country and I asked how many inner city riots the aviation industry would deem to be acceptable.
Sir John Armitt posited the proposition
that in 2050 people would still be wanting to fly in the same way
they are now. This is a breathtakingly naïve assumption. In 2050 runaway
climate change will be well underway and destroying much of our
civilisation. The US department of defence is currently war gaming
for climate change conflict in this period. The last thing that
people struggling to survive will be thinking about is where they go
on holiday, that is unless they are amongst the highest paid civil
servants in the country.
In the second session on demand
management and in response to Sir John Armitt demonstrating
continuing naivety on climate change with his suggestion that more
accurate demand forecasts are needed post 2030 for planing purposes I
pointed out that our history on forecasting is very poor. The
financial models the banks used predicted the risk of recent
financial crashes in the order of 1 in 1E50 (1 with 50 zeros behind
it). Our ability to predict passenger demand will be equally poor,
especially when we continue to exclude the impact of climate change. I
made the point that as CO2 continues to rise, our economic resources
would have to be directed towards constructing a low carbon economy
whilst simultaneously embarking on a wholesale rebuilding of existing
infrastructure to cope with climate change impacts. In this future
there will be no spare resources for building airports with no
business cases. Again, I suggested that Sir John Armitt could answer
his own question on the robustness of demand models post 2030 by
looking at the increasing cost to Network Rail from climate change
and projecting this forward. To help him with his analysis he should
consider that we are only in the early stages of climate change and
much more serious warming is set to come.
Again for the record, the basis of the
CBI argument was that we must have connections to the fast growing
economies of China and India. I offered the challenge to the CBI to
demonstrate how long they believe these economies will continue
growing, given that they have already reached many of the naturalgrowth limits and will face the same dilemmas as us in the near
future.
After your deliberations you will of
course be tempted by the argument that we must continue to expand
because China and others will continue to pollute, and it is correct
that China plans to buy the thousands of planes that we subsidise Airbus and
Boeing to build. Maybe you should say it how it is – this
act of China which is supported by Airbus and Boeing breaches the
Durban Platform Agreement should be considered an act of
aggression.
I was asked by a colleague last night
why there is any desire to build airports at all. I was stumped,
especially when BAA's accounts show the business to be loss making
and virtually bankrupt as it struggles with its existing interest
payments. The only suggestion I could offer is that as the economy
suffered a money supply contraction following the banking crash of
2008, the mathematics of the fraction reserve banking system make it
imperative for the government to ensure large amounts of new finance
is created to reverse it. This will largely be through new debt backed by
equity from Middle Eastern Sovereign funds, helping perpetuate
markets for their oil. Ultimately, it does not matter if this is for
profitable purposes or not as BAA is certainly not profitable today,
it is about creating money and markets for oil. Correct me if I am
wrong.
Thanks again for the tea, coffee and a
most entertaining time in Manchester.
