Tories play catchup on global warming

9.18.06am GMT Sun 11th Mar 2007

Aircraft engines pump out carbon dioxide high into the atmosphere where their greenhouse warming effect is magnified. Air travel must do its bit to combat climate change as must other forms of transport and power generation.

The Conservatives are to announce that they now think it is a good idea that air travel be accountable for the greenhouse gases airliners emit, contributing to climate change. Philip James, Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesman for Bristol East said "The Conservatives are at long last beginning to recognise what the Liberal Democrats have long had policies to counter."

"Lib-Dems want air passengers to understand the environmental damage their flights cause and to moderate their demand for air travel accordingly. Airlines also share some of the responsibility so the Liberal Democrats want the aircraft not the passengers taxed to encourage airlines to fill all the seats on each aircraft so they burn fuel more efficiently."

"The economics of flying must take into account all the costs of flying not just the costs of buying the fuel and the aircraft, paying for landing slots and the salaries of the staff. At the moment, airlines do not even pay tax on the fuel they burn so air travel has an advantage over other, more environmentally friendly forms of travel."

"The family that flies once a year should not be stopped from enjoying their annual holiday but the frequent flier who treats an aircraft as a bus should realise that they are presently enjoying a subsidy from the future. They are enjoying cheap air travel at the expense of the rest of us who can expect to be confronted by massive bills in the coming decades to combat increasing storm damage, rising sea levels, desertification and massive refugee movements, even within Europe and the UK."

"If you look back on the last century, liberals have been responsible for the most important and positive innovations in the UK political scene. It was a Liberal government that introduced the state pension. As the then government, Labour capitalised on Liberal thinking when it created the National Health Service and Liberal Democrat policy when it made the Bank of England independent, which has given us low and stable interest rates for the last decade."

"The electorate should consider whether it can trust a future Conservative government to implement policies it has only lately embraced and in its heart does not understand, or a future Liberal Democrat government whose principles and policies are aligned as one."

Philip James added

"When it comes to Labour or Tory governments stealing our clothes, we are of course pleased that people will see the benefits of some of our policies being implemented. We do question whether the other parties truly understand them and can steer them through effectively. That is a risk voters can avoid by electing Liberal Democrats and cutting out the middlemen."