Still no aviation in the Climate Change Bill

Whoops! The shiny new Climate Change Bill received its first scintillating reading in the House of Lords this week.

For all the fanfare which greeted the first national binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions, a few things seem to have slipped through the cracks – most notably that the Government seems to have forgotten to include aviation emissions in their reduction targets. Whilst this handy omission will probably make it easier to balance the books come 2050, it’ll make for a truly toothless piece of legislation in its current form, not to mention a fairly nonsensical one.

Surely the Bill's purpose is to stop or slow down climate change. As activists around the country are asking, how will it do that if UK emissions in a particular sector (I wonder if you can guess which one) continue their inexorable rise?

Don't worry though, UK plc has it covered. One sub-sub-sub-section of the bill states that "emissions of greenhouse gases from international aviation or international shipping do not count as emissions from sources in the United Kingdom."

You see, whilst many aeroplanes take off from our country’s numerous airports, they aren’t actually in the UK when they emit, so it’s pretty obvious their emissions shouldn’t be included, right? We can't be expected to cover emissions emitted in the skies above our green and pleasant land, can we?

Anyway, I'm sure the industry will be happy to have their emissions dealt with through international legislation. Oh, wait a second…