The UK government's environmental czar remains unconvinced by industry technology-borne claims that carbon emissions could return to 2000 levels by 2050.
Appearing before the parliamentary transport committee Lord Smith, Environment Agency chairman, said the true environmental cost of aviation was not being met, adding he did not believe either passengers or airlines were paying to cover climate change and health effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other local air pollution impacts.
"The aviation industry is now having to make its case more clearly than it was before, and rightly so. The question of the expansion of aviation into the future needs to be related to the climate change targets we have set as a country and I don't think that has yet been done, either by the aviation industry or, indeed, by government."
The recent claims to which Lord Smith referred were made by Sustainable Aviation, a coalition of UK airlines, airports, aerospace manufacturers and ATM providers, which last December published its first report mapping the air transport industry's carbon emissions to 2050.
Its forecast of returning to 2000 levels by 2050 relies heavily on a vision of a maturing UK air transport combined with anticipated efficiencies from new airframe and engine technology, advanced air traffic management and operations, as well as the sustainable fuel development - although market-based measures such as cap and trade emission schemes were not counted.
Lord Smith said the UK needed to make a strategic decision as to how in 2050 the 20% of national carbon limit would be allocated between sectors. "Where aviation fits into that picture, and to what extent, seems to me to be the most important question that we need to decide if we're looking at the long term future of the aviation industry," he said.
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