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A CLOSED DEBATE

CIWEM Executive Director, Nick Reeves, says a third runway at Heathrow looks like a done deal that could cast a long shadow over the Government's claim to be green.

Between 1821 and 1826 radical politician and farmer, William Cobbett, toured the southern English countryside by foot and on horseback, then published his remarkable account of what he saw in Rural Rides. When he reached that part of Middlesex that is now Heathrow Airport he described the place as 'ugly'. But, what would he make of it now? And, being one of the first environmental campaigners, what would he make of present efforts to tackle climate change? For all that he loathed the county I feel sure he would have been among the first to defend what remains of rural Middlesex that is now under threat from airport development.

During the time New Labour has been in government the UK's aviation carbon emissions have risen from 4.6 million tons per year to over 18 million tons. Binge-flying is our dirty little habit that is forcing the Government, BAA and the business community to ride roughshod over local people that will lead to the destruction of what remains of the countryside and its villages around Heathrow: Cranford, Sipson and Harmondsworth. In the cause of economic growth Ruth Kelly wants an airport policy that has its routes in the Dark Ages and wants outbound tourism to let rip. To hell with Harmondsworth tithe barn, Sir John Betjeman's 'cathedral of Middlesex'. Yet, British airports are not really about helping business, but about helping the relatively affluent end of tourism, providing cheap and unlimited access to the world for the Aga classes. More than 87 percent of international travellers are flying for leisure and personal reasons. For most folk air travel is primarily an indulgence. If Heathrow existed to serve business the place would be half empty.

'The present levels of noise (and air pollution) around Heathrow are unacceptable in a civilised country.' So said the inspector responsible for the Inquiry into the airport's fourth terminal in 1979. And yet that building was pushed through, as was the terminal after that. No expansion at Heathrow ever gets anything as unequivocal as a nod; it receives a resigned shrug, a worn out sigh. However justified, resistance always seems futile, outgunned by the Government and the powerful aviation industry.

That same weariness could be detected as Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, launched her public consultation into the building of a third runway at Heathrow. One hardened campaigner against the scheme admitted that the battle was as good as lost: 'Given the framework the Government has chosen, it will be difficult to challenge the plan.' If that is what the dedicated are saying, imagine how others are feeling. New Labour is already committed to a third runway at Heathrow - as well as to others at Stansted, Birmingham and Edinburgh. The argument is a simple one: beefing up our airports will create jobs, boost the economy and is sustainable climatically. Besides, the Department for Transport sees a massive increase in air travel as inevitable. It expects the number of passengers to double by 2030 to 465 million (by which time we are supposed to have reduced our carbon emissions by at least 60 percent). Informed by such thinking, the 238-page Government consultation document, published on 22 November last year, accepts the case for expanding Heathrow. The biggest question posed by Ruth Kelly is not whether the runway should be built but how intensively should it be used? But, there is a much bigger question: at what point do we say enough is enough and ask when airport expansion will stop?  The planned third runway would increase Heathrow's carbon emissions by at least 40 percent - a compelling fact that should halt the proposal in its tracks.

This is not a public consultation, nor even an attempt at a conversation; it is a lecture. Ministers, I hear, will not hold public meetings with local residents. Not even the village of Sipson - due to be obliterated by the runway - will get an official visit. The document's figures on noise and pollution were provided by Heathrow's owners, BAA, and some of the report's arguments are so lopsided that they too might have well been. Gordon Brown may have come to power promising greater openness and a commitment to tackling climate change, but this report shows more of the old thinking that always puts growth and business interests ahead of environmental ones.

Visitors to Heathrow know that it is bursting at the seams. Before increasing capacity, however, a better first step would be ridding the airport of most of the flights for journeys that could reasonably be carried out by other modes of transport. Consumers can and do change their behaviour. A few years ago the ratio of air travellers to train passengers on the journey between London and Manchester was seven to three. Since Virgin brought in its high-speed service between the two cities that ratio has been reversed. The Government should have seized this as a chance to encourage greener travel. True, it lobbied for the introduction of aviation into the European carbon-trading scheme. But, that does not atone for building a third runway, as Ruth Kelly thinks it does. Any Europe-wide consensus on including air travel in the scheme will probably come after the consultation is over. Besides, the scheme has a very patchy record.

Given Mr Brown's commitment last November - in his first green speech as Prime Minister - to taking a global lead in tackling climate change, it would have been far more consistent and refreshing for the Government to talk about reducing air travel. Instead, it appears hell-bent on creating extra capacity - which will be very quickly taken up by the airlines. The aviation industry often argues that if Britain does not give it room to grow, other countries will. Amsterdam will take up the slack, say BAA and others. And besides, China and India are fast taking to the plane. That aviation is a global business is undeniable. All the more reason for Britain to take an international lead. Instead, the Government rolls over to the collective power of the aviation and tourism lobby, accepting the huge growth in air travel as unstoppable and that concern for the environment must take a back seat.

I remain sceptical about how far humankind can influence present global warming and am beginning to sense that the planet will, in the end, get its revenge by entering a new geological era that will exclude most of us. But only a fool would deny any obligation to mitigate it. Ministers are denying just that. They take as axiomatic a doubling in demand by 2030. This is dumb planning that is characteristic of the Department of Transport's outmoded 'predict and provide' approach to transport planning and to tourism.

The truth is nobody yet knows how transport policy should respond to climate change. And until we know what a lower-carbon transport policy might look like, we cannot say whether a new runway at Heathrow is needed or merely profitable. All I believe is that the case for a third runway is so thin as to amount to a single statement: BAA and BA want it. And the Government will allow it. That Ruth Kelly and Gordon Brown support airport expansion at Heathrow betrays an ugly truth about government today: it is prepared to take a stance on big-ticket issues before it has consulted with the public and before a formal consultation process gets underway. This cannot be right.

Climate change will be an excuse to assault civil liberties and impose solutions without public participation. As so often with liberty, serious threats to society provide excuses for restriction and loss of hard won freedoms. It is right that politicians should make decisions in principle, but it is vital that the communities that carry the consequences should have a say in their implementation.