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Europe Seeks to Impose Airline Emission Controls
James Kanter, New York Times
In a move to raise the stakes in global environmental policy, the European Commission said Tuesday that it would seek to impose emissions controls on all flights in and out of Europe, according to a draft of a proposed law.
The proposed policy could drive a wedge between Europe and its trading partners, who are wary that the push for tighter standards could mean higher costs for carriers. The United States government, along with many airlines, favors a global system that avoids regional variations. They are likely to bristle at the prospect of a costly new regulation on carriers.
Because global agreement on emissions controls would probably take a long time to achieve, European officials are determined to push forward their own. Foreign-based carriers serving high-traffic destinations like London and Paris would be forced to operate under the new rules.
“Emissions from all flights arriving at and departing from E.U. airports should be included,” the proposed law states. The “scheme can thereby serve as a model for the expansion of the scheme worldwide,” it states. ..
Europe is expected to make its proposals public before the new year. But the proposal is likely to face intense opposition in the United States, which could delay approval. ..
(14 Nov 2006)
Related: American fury at plan to charge £27 green tax on long flights.
UK government buys carbon offsets for air travel
Staff, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership
The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), a global partnership that facilitates financing for sustainable energy projects, and CO2e.com LLC, (CO2e), a leading broker within the global carbon markets, announced today their joint facilitation of a unique deal to offset carbon emissions generated from annual air travel by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2004.
The deal is a first for REEEP within its newly established voluntary carbon offset facility for governments (REEEP Voluntary Carbon Offset Mechanism or ‘VCO’); a first carbon offset transaction involving a governmental organisation through this mechanism, and a first for CO2e sourcing Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) for the European voluntary sector.
(13 Nov 2006)
This Blair government decision has nothing to do with this recent article in The Independant.-LJ
Superhighway may create ‘the Los Angeles of England’
Jonathan Leake, Sunday Times (UK)
Cost of widening the M25 will be an extra £3.4 billion
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IT COULD be Britain’s biggest “mortgage”. The government is to pay a consortium of road builders more than £5 billion to widen the M25, even though the work will cost only £1.6 billion.
The Highways Agency has said that about 63 miles of the 118-mile road will be expanded from six to eight lanes at a cost of £79m a mile.
The scheme will become Britain’s biggest-ever private finance initiative (PFI), the controversial system under which private firms fund and build infrastructure projects such as roads and hospitals then “rent” them back to the government.
Such schemes have been widely criticised as poor value because contractors can generate huge profits by charging the government interest payments and capital repayments, all at the taxpayers’ expense.
…Chris Grayling, Conservative transport spokesman, said the government had “lost control” of spending on roads. “This project will suck up money that could have been spent on alternative forms of transport like the tram networks that have been cancelled in Manchester and Liverpool,” he said.
Under the scheme the M25 will have at least eight lanes for all its length except in the western sections around Heathrow where it already has up to 12 lanes. The 200,000 vehicles a day flowing through the busiest sections will rise to an estimated 250,000 once work is completed in 2016.
The Highways Agency and the Department for Transport say that the project is vital for Britain’s economy.
Others warn that it will simply encourage more car use. Stephen Joseph of Transport 2000, which campaigns for environmentally friendly forms of transport, said: “Turning the M25 into an American-style superhighway will not solve congestion but it will push the southeast in the direction of becoming the Los Angeles of England.”
(12 Nov 2006)
Submitter Norman Church writes:
The M25 is the London Orbital Motorway (turnpike/ freeway or some such in Americanese.)
Does this prove that government really don’t accept Peak Oil in their planning for even more vehicles on the roads? And like other previous projects by the time it is finished there may so much more traffic around that it will be out dated before it is used.
Would it not be better to use the money in planning for the future instead of concreting over even more of this green and pleasant land.
Polluting cars face charge rise
BBC
London residents with band G cars will lose their 90% discount
Vehicles causing the most pollution in central London are to face huge increases in the congestion charge, mayor Ken Livingstone has announced.
(14 Nov 2006)
