Skip to main content

Airports: Carbon Emissions

Question for Department for Transport

UIN 18648, tabled on 21 February 2020

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to encourage airports to become carbon neutral.

Answered on

26 February 2020

The Government’s climate change targets include airport emissions, and so airports will need to reach net zero by 2050.

Airport emissions are largely generated by surface access and power and heat generation, both of which will be addressed through measures targeted at those sectors. For example, this includes an investment of nearly £1.5 billion? to support the transition to ultra-low emission vehicles, with grants available for plug-in vehicles and schemes to support chargepoint infrastructure. We are also consulting on bringing forward our ambition to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans forward to 2035 or earlier, as per the advice of the Committee on Climate Change.

Airports are not legally responsible for emissions from aircraft operations.

On emissions from aircraft operations, we are planning to consult shortly to update the Government’s position on aviation and climate change. It is critical that we consider how the aviation sector can play its part in delivering our net zero ambitions.

Named day
Named day questions only occur in the House of Commons. The MP tabling the question specifies the date on which they should receive an answer. MPs may not table more than five named day questions on a single day.