The government has been urged to financially back green aviation initiatives after a group of Tory MPs claimed emissions can be cut without forcing people to stop flying.
The call came from the head of the Business Travel Association in response to a manifesto issued by the Conservative Environment Network.
It calls for the introduction of a Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme to grow the UK’s sustainable aviation fuel industry, creating 6,500 jobs, adding £1 billion a year to the economy and cutting 3.6 million tonnes of carbon a year by 2035.
It recommends that ministers use airlines’ tax receipts from a strengthened UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to pay for CfDs “to ensure the aviation industry pays without creating a new tax on the sector”.
Free allowances allocated to airlines under ETS will be phased out to raise additional revenue.
“If this funding is insufficient, ministers could look to expand existing flying taxes to cover ETS-exempt long-haul flights,” the report suggests.
It also suggests a £1 million competition for the first zero-emission domestic flight in the UK to spur innovation for ‘jet zero’ by 2040. This would replicate a competition which saw Virgin Atlantic win funding for the world’s first net zero flight from London to New York.
More than 30 Conservative MPs have signed the ‘Taking Flight: A policy route to achieving jet zero’ manifesto including former aviation minister Robert Courts and Henry Smith, chair of the Future of Aviation All-Party Parliamentary Group
However, BTA chief executive Clive Wratten said: “It is imperative that mandates such as these are rolled out for the wider travel supply chain to allow carbon measurement, reduction and offsetting for entire journeys, not just air travel.
“As an industry, we can do better, but there is a need for a percentage of APD [Air Passenger Duty] to be used to fund sustainable aviation fuel innovation as well as other alternatives.
“Put simply, we cannot innovate, offset and reduce without the support and financial buy-in from the government.”
Wratten described the report as tackling “the desperate need to negotiate the legitimacy of carbon-offsetting vendors and increase the infrastructure around sustainable fuels”.
Courts said: “We can reach net zero without restricting flying if we back the UK’s sustainable aviation sector. They need the confidence to invest here in Britain, bringing thousands of jobs with them and helping us to cut aeroplane emissions.
“Telling people they can’t go on foreign holidays or visit family abroad would undermine support for net zero. We need to look to innovation, technology and competition to solve this problem, not restrictions to ground people for good.
“This manifesto shows how we can replicate the Contracts for Difference scheme, which successfully scaled up British offshore wind, to shape the future of flying and ensure the UK is home to this net zero industry.”
Smith, whose Crawley constituency includes Gatwick, added: “It would be wrong to turn back the clock on aviation, shrink this successful industry, and make it harder to travel within the UK and abroad to achieve our climate goals.
“There is another way to secure the future of aviation through technology, winning the UK a new industry in the process.
“I urge government to adopt the ideas within this manifesto to support the development of sustainable aviation fuel and other innovative technologies to spur progress toward zero-emission flights.”