Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-13-Speech-3-185"
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"en.20001213.7.3-185"2
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"Mr President, I would like to warmly welcome the report on aviation fuel tax because it addresses head-on the fact that aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and that far from discouraging these emissions, the current exemption of aviation from a fuel tax actually promotes and artificially stimulates the aviation sector and the environmental damage that goes with it.
I particularly welcome the fact that the report reinforces one of the key points that I made in my report for the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism which this Parliament voted on a few months ago, namely, that since it is undoubtedly politically difficult to achieve international agreement on an aviation tax, at least in a short term, we should look at alternative tools to achieve the same effect, including an emissions charge. Such a charge could be levied on all flights coming into or going out of EU airports, on all carriers, and plenty of research has been done to show that this would not have negative competitive effects. It could be agreed very swiftly without requiring international consensus, and could help make significant progress towards internalising environmental costs.
The importance of moving ahead on this issue swiftly is very clear. The forecasts for the global growth of aviation are terrifying. Official figures suggest a doubling of passenger numbers in just fifteen or twenty years, and if you look at what that means in UK terms alone, in order to meet that scale of demand we would be needing an extra four new Heathrow Airports or an extra eight new Gatwick Airports. That would clearly be both politically and environmentally unacceptable.
So, instead of trying to meet projected demand we need to try to manage and reduce that demand by ensuring that the price of aviation more accurately reflects its environmental cost. When air tickets are 42% cheaper today than they were ten years ago, it is clear that the wrong price signals are being given out. It makes no sense at all that I can travel from London to Brussels return for just £89 by Virgin Airways, for example, yet when I use Eurostar, which produces far fewer greenhouse gases and is a much more pleasant way to travel, I have to pay the equivalent of around £250 for a similar journey.
So to conclude, action in this area is overdue and if we do not do something about it very swiftly then our efforts to try to reduce the impacts of climate change are going to be stymied."@en1
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