Can the UK limit Heathrow’s climate impact?

Can the UK limit Heathrow's climate  impact?
British Chancellor Rachel Reeves has  dismissed concerns about the climate impact of  the expansion of London's Heathrow  Airport, insisting there is "no  trade-off" between  continued economic growth and the UK's desire to  decarbonise its economy.
Reeves said this week  that the government  would approve controversial  plans to build a third runway at the UK's  biggest airport, despite concerns that a  surge in air traffic would  jeopardise the country's  progress towards  carbon neutrality by  the mid-2020s.
The math behind Reeves's claims rests on a big  bet: that  emissions-reducing technologies will  be developed quickly enough to offset the  increase in flights.  But experts  say these technologies are currently  expensive and  have not yet  been tested on a large scale.  The UK has  set a  legal target of  achieving net zero emissions by 2050. More urgently, the  country must reduce its emissions by  81% below 1990  levels over the next 10 years to meet new climate targets  set by the  UN. Air travel currently  accounts for around 7% of UK  emissions. In 2022, under the previous government, the UK published its  'Jet Zero' strategy, which promised  'zero-defect flights' powered by hydrogen,  battery-powered aircraft and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Neither hydrogen nor battery-powered aircraft are ready for mass  commercialisation. This means that for at least the next decade, the burden will fall on  SAF.
Not a valid attachment ID.

SAFs are broadly defined, including fuels  produced from used cooking  oils, synthetic fuels made  from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, or biofuels made from plants and trees.  It is difficult to calculate exactly how much  they reduce carbon emissions over  their life cycle compared to  fossil kerosene and  this depends on the type of SAF used. For example,  the use of waste fuels in some cases results in  almost no reduction in emissions. The UK government's strategy assumes that replacing  kerosene with SAF results in a 70% reduction in  life cycle emissions. The UK has  asked airlines  to replace 10% of their  jet fuel with  SAF by 2030 and 22% by  2040.
Chris Hilson, director of the Centre for Climate and Justice at the University of Reading, calls the UK's  forecasts for  SAF "overly  optimistic" because the fuel is expensive and  difficult to produce  on a large scale. "Even with these fuels, flights will still produce significant emissions," he said.
A UK government  spokesman said it was "committed to delivering  a greener  aviation sector." He added: "We  have already  made significant progress towards a greener  aviation sector, with new targets for sustainable aviation fuel starting this year."
Heathrow declined to  comment.
SAF currently costs at least twice as much as  kerosene. The UK government's cost-benefit analysis suggests that its  jet fuel target will cost around £11.4 billion  by 2040. However, some of these costs  will be mitigated by  reducing the amount airlines have to pay in carbon  credits.
Not a valid attachment ID.
But this assumes  there is enough  jet fuel to meet the quota.  Producers around the  world are trying to get  it going. BloombergNEF, a clean energy  researcher, estimates that by 2030  there will be enough capacity to meet about 5% of global  demand for jet  fuel. Countries such as Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia are also planning to introduce  jet fuel mandates, which  will put further pressure on  supply. The rise in aviation emissions  will put pressure on other pillars of the UK's net zero  emissions strategy. The government  aims for 100% "clean"  energy – mainly from renewable sources  – by 2030.  Analysis by Alex Chapman  of the New Economics Foundation think  tank predicts that expansions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton  airports will cancel out the benefits of the  Clean Power Plan within five years of  its implementation. The runway  is not expected to be built and operational until  2035. Even in  the most optimistic scenarios, UK aviation is already  projected to create a  surplus of around 19 million  tonnes of greenhouse gases  by 2050, which the government  plans to  offset by using carbon removal  technologies such as direct air capture  – another technology that  does not yet exist  on a large scale. "You're growing something that  doesn't have the  capacity to decarbonize at the moment," said Alice Larkin, professor of climate science and energy policy at the University of Manchester.

[attachment deleted by admin]