Halt the plans to expand airport

The Member of Parliament for the Arun area, Andrew Griffith, must be congratulated by his appointment to the Net Zero Business group, but as he would seem to support Gatwick Airport operations, we offer words of caution.

Gatwick Airport state that they produced 0.77 million tonnes of CO2 in 2017 and expect it to grow to 0.95 million tonnes of CO2 by 2028, but this assessment is limited in both scope and duration: the analysis shows the emissions that Gatwick is directly responsible for (such as fuel used by vehicles at the airport, and the electricity purchased), as well as indirect emissions from passenger journeys to and from the airport and staff commuting.

Aircraft emissions are also included in this calculation, but crucially, only for the landing and take-off cycle, capturing the flights emissions below an altitude of 3,000 feet only.

Gatwick management continue with plans to rebuild the emergency runways as a second runway which would add an additional one million tonnes of CO2.

At this month’s aviation climate change conference, by their own admission they will continue to be major emitters of carbon and will not meet net zero by 2050 with no one silver bullet to an alternative fuel to fossil fuel.

The willingness is there but the technology to fly transatlantic by an alternative fuel has not been found and unlikely to be found any day soon.

Net Zero Business must be looking at green forms of transport and business to ensure there is a planet for future generations to live on as aviation has yet to deal with the additional pollution created by contrails (vapour) and NOx on top of fossil fuel burn.

Plans for airport expansion at Gatwick Airport have to be halted and we ask residents to write to their MP and councillors and demand just this if we are serious about meeting net zero by 2050 and leaving a planet for future generations.

CAGNE Full address supplied Horsham