Richard's blog

Geoff Hoon woke up yesterday and went out to give a speech to the Royal Society about the many solutions to aviation and climate change. The solution, of course, is to let everyone fly as much as they like, because technology would save us. Technology and the Emissions Trading Scheme, which, as he reminded his audience, is a real and effective cap on aviation emissions in Europe...

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

The Secretary of State was cut off in mid-flow, as a loud honking noise blared out across the room. Up popped a young woman who apologised for making a racket. She'd rather foolishly forgotten to turn off her lie detector horn, which had picked up on Hoon's rather blatant fibbing. It wouldn't happen again, she promised.

Of course it did; other people in the audience had brought their lie detectors and these kept sounding as Hoon tried to give his speech. If only, he thought to himself, I'd remembered to tell the truth, instead of a bunch of nonsense that sounded good when Flying Matters told it to me. Maybe these silly stunts have a purpose after all...

This morning seven people from Plane Stupid Southampton were charged after setting up a climate refugee camp across the entrance to Southampton airport. Pete Barker, one of those arrested, describes why he felt compelled to take direct action to stop climate change:

Once again I’m sat on the train to Southampton with my heart pounding, this time its for my first ever court appearance, but two weeks ago we were here steeling ourselves for direct action at the airport. We wanted to wake people up to the kind of things we can expect from climate change and challenge BAA, the owners of Southampton airport, to do something for the victims.We had even set them on the way by formally submitting a planning application for a Change of Use.

Source: Flickr

Nine young protesters from the climate action group Plane Stupid Scotland have this morning shut down Aberdeen airport by setting up a golf course on the taxiway. They have surrounded themselves with fortified security fencing whilst another group are occupying the roof of the terminal building and have unfurled a banner reading, “Nae Trump Games with Climate Change”.

The peaceful protest began at 02.15am this morning whilst the runway was closed. Plane Stupid aims to prevent the scheduled reopening of the runway at 5am. The group intends to maintain its blockade for as long as possible to prevent the release of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Photos available for download and media on our Flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/planestupid.

The activists entered the runway by cutting the fence and scaled the roof climbing ladders. Dressed as Donald Trump, sporting wigs and golfing attire, with crazy golf clubs and balls, the group are ‘putting’ on the tarmac. The banner on the fencing erected by the group reads “Plane Stupid Scotland Golf Open 2009”.

Donald Trump is supporting the expansion of Aberdeen airport where his super-rich friends will arrive to play golf on his controversial golf course. BAA Aberdeen said they welcome Donald Trump's Golf Course. Like Alex Salmond, Trump wants to bulldoze over democratic opposition to environmentally damaging projects like airport expansion. Both Trump and BAA’s plans face fierce local opposition.

One of the activists on the taxiway, Jonny Agnew, 22, from Edinburgh, said:

“We have been failed by the generation of Donald Trump and Alex Salmond. Despite a catalogue of scientific reports warning them that they can’t keep on with aviation growth – even if that hinders their ability to jet in for a weekend of golf – they continue with disregard for all of us, who will end up dealing with the impacts of the climate crisis.”

He added:

“The reality is that our generation’s future is vanishing so that people like Donald Trump and his super-rich friends can jet into Aberdeen for a round of golf. The expansion of this airport just cannot go ahead."

Another, 24 year old Tilly Gifford, a social worker from Glasgow, said:

“Alex Salmond wants to let the Spanish shareholders of BAA, Donald Trump and his super-rich American friends concrete over Scotland and its efforts to stop runaway climate change.”

She added:

“Arctic ice is melting, the sea is already rising and experts warn the world’s rainforests could collapse. Our generation is already starting to feel these impacts as the warming kicks in so it’s obvious that it’s going to need to be us that urgently puts the brakes on expanding unnecessary airports.”

The campaigners chose to close Aberdeen after the Scottish government gave its backing to the expansion of capacity at the airport by 1.5 million passengers by 2015. Aviation is Britain's fastest growing source of emissions, already amounting to at least 13% of the UK's climate emissions.

With plans in the Scottish government’s ‘National Planning Framework’ for growth at Scottish airports including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen - as well as Heathrow and Stansted - experts from the Tyndall Centre for climate research say aviation policy alone will scupper any chance the UK has of hitting its climate targets.

25 year old Dan Glass, a community worker from Glasgow, said:

“We’re here to say it cannot happen, and our generation won’t let it happen. The scientists tell us we've got seven years to make emissions peak then drop, and if we fail, the people on this runway and their entire generation, and our children, willl live with the consequences. That's why we’re doing this.”

I've been following the convoluted story of Heathrow's third runway for several years now, and thought I'd got my head around the layers of corruption. But this weekend's Daily Mail has blown all my expectations out of the water, blending several layers of intrigue and dodgy dealings into an already overblown saga.

Turns out twice-disgraced meddler Peter Mandelson was arranging meetings between BAA's spin doctor Roland Rudd and Government Ministers - including Transport Minister Lord Adonis - at least five times in ten days in the run up to the Heathrow decision.

Those meetings:

• October 17 last year: Lord Mandelson holds meeting with Roland Rudd, whose PR firm Finsbury represents airport operator BAA.
• December 4: Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon postpones decision on building third runway at Heathrow until January.
• December 8: Rudd, representing Business for New Europe, and Business Minister Shriti Vadera attend the Global Europe Business Summit.
• December 10: Rudd attends breakfast meeting with Lord Mandelson.
• December 12: Representative of Finsbury meets Transport Minister Lord Adonis.
• December 16: Representative of Finsbury meets Lord Adonis again.
• December 17: Rudd attends a second breakfast meeting with Lord Mandelson.

Now I'm sure that at no point did Mandelson, Rudd or Adonis discuss anything to do with Heathrow's third runway. After all, it's not like BAA offered out of the blue to pay £230 million towards Crossrail - effectively rescuing the project from disaster - just two weeks after Mandleson and Rudd first met...

I'll get the puns out the way early: Michael O'Leary talks a lot of crap. Ha ha! This time he's floated the idea of charging passengers one pound to use the loo. Cue outrage, headlines, and more publicity for the airline. So let's ignore his latest outburst and laugh at his pre-tax profits for quarter four 2008.

Ryanair lost £92 million, because they gambled on the price of fuel and lost, fairly spectactularly. Airlines try to smoothe out fluctuating oil prices by hedging: setting a price for fuel for the next few months instead of buying at whatever the daily price is. While oil prices were rising Ryanair locked in their fuel at $124 a barrel; it then crashed to $33 / barrel.

To make things worse O'Leary refused to hedge in the months before the price hikes, so he was paying up to $147 a barrel while other airlines had locked in significantly lower prices and whacked on fuel surcharges. Hence last year's losses and O'Leary's desperate need to remind people Ryanair exists by making outrageous comments that get everyone writing pointless blogs criticising their policies.

Further problems for BAA at Stansted; just as it tries to cope with falling profits and passengers. A coalition of airlines, including Ryanair ("idiot bloggers") and easyJet, have written to Ministers seeking a one-year postponement of the second runway inquiry. Now Stop Stansted Expansion has launched a High Court challenge to last summer's decision to increase flights. If they're successful BAA will be right back where it started, but several million pounds worse off.

The thrust of their argument is absurdly simple: the inspector was wrong to ignore the climate change, economic and noise impacts of the airport. During the Air Transport White Paper consultation the Government justified airport expansion because individual plans would get scrutinised at public inquiries. This meant that the Government could ignore the impacts of expansion, but also that the inspector should have taken account of those impacts when he reached his decision. He didn't; ergo the High Court challenge.

The High Court hearing ends today, with a decision expected a few weeks after. It's pretty clear to me that they have a great case, but then judges have a funny tendency of disagreeing with me. Either way there will be huge ramifications for airport campaigners and airport operators: if SSE are successful then inspectors wouldn't be able to defer CO2 discussions to the Government any more. Fingers crossed the judge sees sense, not pound signs.

Strange things are afoot in Essex. Last week BAA announced that the proposed second runway at Stansted wouldn't be operational until 2017 because of falling demand; this week it's thrown up its hands and agreed not to challenge Stansted's forced sale.

This is a big news. At pre-inquiry meetings BAA's lawyers refused to put the public inquiry on hold until the sale had taken place. They were adamant that the new owners would want a second runway. But there's no evidence that this is the case: passenger numbers are in freefall, and BAA would charge a premium for obtaining planning permission. This is fine in an economic boom, but we're in recession; buyers are after a fire sale, not bells and whistles.

It's not just buyers hit by the credit crunch: Ferrovial is struggling to pay its debts and Basque sepratists ETA have launched a bombing campaign to stop it building a new high-speed rail line. Ferrovial and BAA need to raise money quickly, and if no one will pay extra for permission to expand, why push ahead with a costly and protracted public inquiry? It's too early to predict, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that BAA had issued a sheepish retraction and quietly sidelined its grandiose expansion plans.

Extremists are rumoured to be planning a 'summer of rage'. The organiser of a shadowy group known as the Metropolitan police's riot division (motto: Beating up protestors since 1816) has threatened that this summer will be full of chaotic scenes as heavily armoured riot cops wade into demos and make sure they "kick off a bit so the media gets some tasty photographs".

Dismissing claims that it's often the police who like to wade into protests and cause a ruck, Superintendent David Hartshorn said "that sounds like exactly the sort of thing these bloody peacenicks would say" before threatening to spray CS gas at anoyone who suggested otherwise.

Anyone not put off by the steady escalation of police threats (see the now infamous NETCU 'eco-activists = terrorists' article in the Observer last year) should make sure they come to the Camp for Climate Action for a Financial Fools Day action on April 1st. Bring pop-up tents, music, water and soothing aromatherapy oils in case any of these extremist coppers show up demanding a riot.