Leeds Bradford Airport's zero carbon contradiction - Yorkshire Post Letters

I WELCOME the announcement by Leeds Bradford Airport that it plans to become a zero carbon airport by 2030.

But I do wonder what they are trying to achieve. If their goal is to reduce carbon, then they need to withdraw their application to increase flight numbers.

If their goal is to win the permission to fly more, then carbon reduction isn’t their goal – in fact the opposite – and they must come clean.

It does appear to be a mischievous attempt to ‘put lipstick on a pig’.

Flying is overwhelmingly the most carbon intensive method of transport, and there is no current technology to achieve even low carbon – never mind zero carbon – flights.

Climate change is destroying human and natural life in so many ways that we need to take the unpalatable step of reducing flights and holidaying locally to avoid the catastrophic step of creating an earth which is uninhabitable for much of its population.

Until the airport can offer zero carbon flying, it should stop pretending to be green.

From: John Stephens, Leeds.

ALTHOUGH referring to the terminal expansion and a net zero target for the airport by 2030, reports do not take into account the huge increase in number of flights which accompany the terminal expansion plans.

This is scheduled to be a further 16,000 flights per annum and will inevitably impact carbon emissions, the climate and the environment.

Any so-called reductions in carbon per passenger reported by airlines are therefore insignificant when compared with the extra carbon that hundreds of thousands more passengers flying through the airport would generate, should the plans be approved.

Owing to new fuel technologies, such as hydrogen powered planes, being decades away and perhaps never being comparably viable; and with Cop26 still being so fresh in all our minds, it is time to shelve these catastrophic plans which would be so detrimental.

From: Graham Lauder, Meanwood, Leeds

THOUSANDS more flights, millions more passenger miles flown and the doubling of greenhouse gas emissions.

These are the consequences of the expansion of Leeds Bradford Airport.

Yet the expansion plans are given approval by Leeds City Council, the very same council which has declared a climate emergency. This climate emergency demands that we cut greenhouse emissions by half by 2030, not double them. When will the council get the message and start acting on it?

YOUR report by Mark Casci on LBA’s plans to reach net zero by 2030 caught my attention.

Naturally we’re all in favour of reducing emissions from the terminal, as well as vehicles, air conditioning etc – but what about the aircraft emissions? They are not included.

Worse still, the authorities plan to expand the airport’s capacity (16,000 more polluting flights per year! Then there’s the extra noise...).

It’s totally baffling. Finding carbon-free jet fuels and new technologies will take decades; far better to put the expansion finance into renewable energies and green transport options. Leeds Bradford Airport should be looking to the 21st century, not the 20th century.