Airlines should be forced to engage in emissions trading, says a consultative committee of the UK parliamentary upper house, the House of Lords. The committee recommends that the UK should use its simultaneous presidency in 2005 of the European Union and of the G8 group of major industrial nations to push for measures to counteract climate change, and it particularly emphasises the effects of air travel growth. The Lords EU committee on environment and agriculture says the UK should use its presidency "to encourage the EU to take further action to tackle climate change". Committee chairman Lord Renton says: "It is extraordinary that on the one hand the government is concerned with climate change, and on the other hand it's encouraging a rapid increase in air travel." The committee says that the government must "convince the EU to include aviation in its mandatory emissions trading scheme as soon as possible".
DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Source: Flight International
