Green Party policy on air travel



Green Party policy on air travel

Report for Geoff Lean and Severin Carroll, Independent on Sunday

Spencer Fitz-Gibbon

External Communications Coordinator

Green Party of England & Wales

Tel 0161 225 4863

Fax 0161 225 1365

Email media@.uk

Press office:

Tel 020 7561 0282

Fax 020 7272 6653

Email press@.uk

Background

Request from S.Carrell@independent.co.uk and geofflean@ (Tel: 020 7005 2856, Mob: 07968 729318), Wednesday, November 13, 2002 6:13 PM, headed AVIATION SURVEY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCIES AND N.G.O.s:

The Government's proposals for a significant expansion in airport capacity, the surge in demand for low cost air travel and the continuing crisis over combating climate change have pushed aviation to the top of the environment agenda.

As a result, we are carrying out a short survey of 20 major British environment and conservation organisations to gauge their policies and practices on the use of air travel by their staff, executives and supporters.

We have asked a wide range of organisations to respond, from ministers at DEFRA and officials at English Nature, through to Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (a full list of respondees

is copied below).

Because of your size, status and influential position, we have included your organisation in our survey, with a view to publishing a report based on the results later in the year. We would be very grateful if you could

respond in as much detail as possible.

Our questions are:

1) Does your organisation have a transport policy which includes monitoring the use of air travel, and other modes of transport, by your staff and executives*?

2) Do you normally allow your executives and staff freely to use air travel for business purposes?

3) How often in the past year have your staff and executives used air travel; and which of those journeys were within the UK, within the European Union and outside Europe? Who are your five most-travelled members of staff?

4) Has that level increased or decreased over the last five years; and how frequently do your staff or executives currently use low cost domestic airlines?

5) Does your organisation have any policy to minimise air travel by using different modes of transport or new media such as video conferencing? If so, what is that policy?

6) What advice do you give your staff, members or supporters about using air travel for holidays or other business activities?

7) Does your organisation offer holidays or tours using air travel to its supporters or members?

8) What is your organisation's official policy on whether there is a need to expand capacity at British airports and on whether all aviation fuel should be subject to taxation? Should all the environmental impacts of air travel be included in ticket costs?

We would be very grateful if you could respond by Friday 13 December 2002, although earlier replies would be appreciated.** If you have any questions about these questions, please don't hesitate to call.

* By executives, we include government ministers, civil servants of First Division Association rank, MEPs, board or commission members and chairmen or women, whether part or full-time.

** If you are a UK-wide organisation, please include staff and executives in your devolved offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in your response.

LIST OF ORGANISATIONS AND AGENCIES INCLUDED IN SURVEY:

DEFRA ministers and senior officials

Dept for Transport ministers and senior officials

English Nature

Environment Agency

Scottish Environmental Protection Agency

Scottish Natural Heritage

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth Scotland

RSPB

Campaign for the Protection of Rural England

Greenpeace

WWF UK

Aviation Environment Federation

Forum for the Future/Green Futures

National Trust

Commission for Integrated Transport

Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Pollution

Transport 2000

Green Party

Response to specific questions

1) Does your organisation have a transport policy which includes monitoring the use of air travel, and other modes of transport, by your staff and executives?

The Green Party has a long-established custom and practice of seeking to use the least environmentally-damaging modes of transport. This is reflected in (eg) policies which require (a) that officers take public transport wherever possible, and (b) car mileage allowance where this is claimed is less in the case of single-occupancy cars.

Where air travel is concerned, we have a simple presumption against it.

2) Do you normally allow your executives and staff freely to use air travel for business purposes?

No.

3) How often in the past year have your staff and executives used air travel; and which of those journeys were within the UK, within the European Union and outside Europe? Who are your five most-travelled members of staff?

Our two MEPs fly when there is no viable alternative (see below), usually within the EU and occasionally outside Europe.

The three Greens on the London Assembly have made only 3 flights on Assembly business between them since their election in May 2000, 1 flight to Zurich and 2 to Washington.

Party staff (employees) seldom if ever fly on Green Party business (none have in recent years). MEP staff occasionally do, on the same policy basis as MEPs (see below) but less frequently as they are each based in a single location. MEPs are of course required to split their time between Brussles, Strasbourg and their constituency, and their pace of work is extremely demanding.

Greens attending overseas conferences etc travel by sea or overland unless there is no practicable alternative. Numbers of representatives are kept to the minimum where travel is by air. Eg the party had three representatives in Kyoto, all of whom travelled by rail; three went to the Genoa summit, all by rail; only one each to Prague, Seattle and Johannesburg, where travel was by air.

Our five most travelled members are:

(a) The two MEPs (see below).

(b) Three members of our International Committee, who travel abroad perhaps twice a year, about 50% by air and 50% by rail/ferry. (The only carriers I know them to have used are BA and Aer Lingus.)

If we had five MEPs as we expect to have in 2004, these would be our most travelled representatives.

4) Has that level increased or decreased over the last five years; and how frequently do your staff or executives currently use low cost domestic airlines?

Our minimal level of air travel has remained constant in general. The level has increased with respect to elected representatives only because we had MEPs elected in 1999.

Since their election, our two MEPs and their staff have followed a policy that they will travel by air only where less environmentally-damaging transport either isn't available, or wouldn't allow them to meet their commitments. In practice, this means they use Eurostar whenever they can avoid flying. In addition, they have lobbied specifically for the European Parliament to dispense with its Brussels-Strasbourg split location - a split which generates a great deal of travel, including air travel (as the rail links to Strasbourg are not as good as those to Brussels), which could otherwise be avoided.

I have found no example of any Green Party staff member or executive using a low-cost domestic airline on Green Party business. (I wouldn't expect to.)

I would expect our use of air travel to increase during the next two years, but only as a result of getting more MEPs elected, certainly not as a general trend. (Of course a Green MEP elected would travel by air no more than an MEP of another party, and probably less.)

5) Does your organisation have any policy to minimise air travel by using different modes of transport or new media such as video conferencing? If so, what is that policy?

We have traditionally used air travel so little that there isn't much to be gained through use of new media, and all Greens understand the need to avoid flying if possible.

However, we have lobbied the Global Greens to facilitate video link-up of its occasional conferences. Because this wasn't possible for its most recent conference in Canberra, Australia, the England & Wales Green Party decided not to send representatives.

6) What advice do you give your staff, members or supporters about using air travel for holidays or other business activities?

In an organisation continually campaigning on aviation issues - opposing all airport expansions, promoting air traffic reduction, urging the ending of all tax-breaks and subsidies and the internalisation of all aviation's external costs - such advice would probably be considered patronising.

7) Does your organisation offer holidays or tours using air travel to its supporters or members?

No, this would be inconceivable for the Green Party.

8) What is your organisation's official policy on whether there is a need to expand capacity at British airports and on whether all aviation fuel should be subject to taxation? Should all the environmental impacts of air travel be included in ticket costs?

We are firmly opposed to the expansion of UK airport capacity, and promote instead a policy of demand-management. See the Transport and Climate Change sections of the Manifesto for a Sustainable Society at .uk/policy.

We argue for the internalisation of all external costs, not merely environmental costs. Our critique of the current situation is covered in detail in Aviation's Economic Downside by Prof John Whitelegg and Dr Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, Green Party, November 2002, .uk/reports. Our outline plan for sustainable aviation is contained in that report.

We actively campaign for aviation fuel to be taxed, and for VAT zero-rating of aviation products to be removed.

Because the UK is bound by the Chicago Convention, which forbids the UK to tax aviation fuel, we are (a) urging international agreement as quickly as possible on the taxation of aviation fuel, as well as the minimisation of aviation's ecological damage and the internalisation of its external costs, and (b) actively promoting short-term policies to introduce emissions/congestion charging at UK airports.

The Greens on the London Assembly, with the support of the national executive, have pioneered the principle of 'air traffic congestion charging', publishing our views on this before the IPPR and RCEP.

We are currently calling on the government to introduce two forms of charge at airports:

a. A Zurich-style emissions charge, revenue-neutral but intended to deter the most highly-polluting engine technology.

b. A new 'air traffic congestion charge', which local/regional authorities should have the power to levy. Our proposed rate for this is to allow the authorities to reclaim one-fifth of the estimated external costs of a given airport's operations, with the revenue gained therefrom specifically to be ploughed into sustainable transport infrastructure, environmental improvements and other means of restoring quality of life in communities adversely affected by neighbouring airports. We see this as an immediate measure by which the UK could start addressing the problem while simultaneously pursuing comprehensive international agreement on aviation taxes and externalities.

The above policies, and the thinking behind them, are explained in Air Traffic Congestion Charging: The potential at Heathrow by Lucy Williams and Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, Green Party July 2001, .uk/reports.

Further information

Air travel practice in the Green Party of England & Wales

Meetings of the Global Greens

The last meeting of the Global Greens was in Canberra, and the England & Wales Green Party did not send representatives, but argued for video link-up.

Delegates from the England & Wales Green Party to meetings of the European Federation of Green Parties, the North Sea Greens, and the Green Islands Network.

Representatives of the England & Wales Green Party to the various international liaison networks within Europe travel to meetings only when this is essential, and then seek to avoid air travel whenever possible.

Green Party MEPs

MEPs are of course obliged to travel by air sometimes, but have adhered scrupulously to the following practice since their election in June 1999:

a. During travel between their constituencies and the European Parliament, they avoid air travel when there is sufficient time between commitments to allow this.

b. They continue to lobby for an end to the split in parliamentary business between Brussels and Strasbourg, a split which necessitates travel (especially air travel) which would otherwise be avoidable.

c. They continue to campaign vigorously for the Green Party's policies on air transport.

Greens on the London Assembly

Since they were elected in 2000, the three Greens on the London Assembly have made only three trips by air on Assembly business between them, 1 to Zurich and 2 to the USA.

Green Party representatives to other international events

Where the party sends representatives to international events, they are expected to travel by sea and land unless there is no reasonable alternative. Where air travel is essential, the Green Party delegation will be kept to an absolute minimum size. Eg the party had three representatives in Kyoto, all of whom travelled by rail; three went to the Genoa summit, all by rail; only one each to Prague, Seattle and Johannesburg, where travel was by air.

National executive and party employees/officers

Executive members, staff and others claiming travel expenses for journeys within mainland Britain are expected to travel overland, preferably by public transport (see above), unless there is no alternative.

No Green Party executive member or party employee has travelled by air on Green Party business within mainland Britain in recent years.

Air travel, business and private: survey of members of the current Green Party national executive

Executive Flown in last Travelled abroad on GP business

member 2 years? or otherwise in last 2 years?

(W = for non-GP work, L = leisure, G = Green Party business)

#1 x1, Spain, L Genoa, train, G

(not flown for several years before that)

#2 x1, Greece, L -

#3 x1, Ireland, G Often (Berlin, Rostock, Heidelberg, Brussels)

always by train (G and L)

#4 No Prague, Oslo by train, both G

France x 2 by ferry (1 by car, 1 by train)

(gave up flying 2 years ago for ecological reasons)

#5 Washington W France x 2 train, L

Zurich W

#6 Several

(ex-airline employee, always on cheap standby flights which don't increase demand for flights)

#7 x1 Spain, L France, train, L

x2, Ireland, W

(not flown for several years before that)

#8 No -

(last flew in 1990)

#9 1x Berlin G, 1x Italy G 1x Brussels G train

1x Budapest G 1 x Paris L train

Averages: during last 2 years, 8 executives have between them made a total of 4 leisure and 4 work-related flights and 4 flights on Green Party business - that is, one-third of a flight per person per year, whether on Green Party business, on other business or for leisure. One other executive member sometimes takes cheap standby tickets from his former employer (a national airline), a highly unusual situation.

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