The Mayor said London MPs who voted for Heathrow expansion were ‘wrong’ when questioned by Caroline Russell AM today. [1]
The controversial expansion is being actively fought by the Mayor who has joined a legal case against a third runway, and the London Assembly who are unanimously opposed to the plans. [2]
Caroline Russell asked the Mayor to give as much weight to climate change as pollution and noise in the joint legal action with boroughs, and he agreed to meet with environmental charity Plan B. [3]
Any airport expansion risks further climate disruption as the Government’s Committee on Climate Change said there is a ‘marked failure’ across the board, in sectors like housing and transport, meaning we are nowhere near meeting the national decarbonisation targets necessary to allow airport expansion.
Caroline Russell said:
The noise and pollution caused by expansion at Heathrow would affect hundreds of thousands of people – not just those living under flight paths but also along the congested roads heading towards the airport. The MPs who supported this stupid decision have let down Londoners.
But this misery wouldn’t be confined to London, air pollution doesn’t settle in one place. We’ve had an unprecedented heatwave and fires in our grasslands this summer as our land dries out. This isn’t a freak occurrence it is climate breakdown and it’s happening now.
Any airport expansion will wreck our commitment to meeting the Paris Climate Change agreement to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees.
The Mayor must step up and show real leadership on this issue and stop pretending expansion won’t work in London but can at Gatwick. He should be working with his C40 major city counterparts on a no airport expansion pledge. It doesn’t work anywhere – we can’t be complacent about our future and close our eyes to what is already happening around us.
Plan B is an environmental charity, who are taking the Government to court because the UK’s carbon targets are based on 2 degree warming and not 1.5 degrees as per the Paris Climate Change agreement.
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Notes to editors
[1] Caroline Russell AM ‘What actions will you take to stop the third runway at Heathrow?’ Mayor’s Question Time, 19 July 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEy-gT9if0&feature=youtu.be
[2] Assembly reaffirms opposition to Heathrow Airport expansion https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/assembly/assembly-opposed-to-h…
[3] Plan B vs UK https://planb.earth/plan-b-v-uk/
[4] How London MPs voted on Heathrow expansion