Only a few hours after announcing a large number of North Sea oil and gas licences, Rishi Sunak has once more defended his use of a private aircraft.
The prime minister has long been under fire for using a private jet to travel throughout the UK, with detractors pointing out that environmentally friendly transportation was frequently an option.
Sunak has taken a variety of trips, including a helicopter flight to Dover (followed by an hour-long train ride), three private plane flights in a 10-day period, and a private jet flight from London to Blackpool.
Private aircraft cause up to 14 times more pollution than commercial aircraft and consume more fuel than those aircraft.
Sunak, however, stated that he will travel to Scotland today to announce money for a carbon capture and storage project during a tense and difficult interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland today.
I’ll be flying as usual since that’s the best use of my time, he declared.
The Tory leader claimed that individuals who were critical of him for using a private jet as the climate issue grew wanted to outlaw “holidays.”
If you or others believe that stopping people from doing anything is the best way to combat climate change, he continued, “I mean, I think that’s absolutely the wrong approach.”
Sunak took a private flight this afternoon to St Fergus, a small community near Peterhead, where the Acorn carbon capture project in the North Sea will be presented.
While some of Sunak’s private jet travel is funded by government dollars, it is also well known that Tory contributors pay the tab.
Given how “efficient,” he said, travelling by plane to St. Fergus is what prime leaders before him have long done.
Sunak continued, “But if your approach to tackling climate change is to say no one should travel, I think you are completely and utterly wrong. That is absolutely not the approach to tackling climate change.”
The transition will be aided by new technologies like carbon capture and storage, thus we are investing in sustainable aviation fuel.
Sunak asserted earlier today that the UK will give hundreds of additional oil and gas licences and that the country requires fossil fuels.
Despite the fact that the objective has been codified into law, he asserted, “Even when we reach net zero in 2050, a quarter of our energy needs will still come from oil and gas.”
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), roughly six in ten Britons express concern about climate change.
The Conservatives have fought against green initiatives including low-emission zones and low-traffic districts while questioning some of Britain’s emission reduction targets.
The UK “has lost its clear global leadership position on climate action,” according to the Climate Change Committee, an independent advisory body to the government.
According to a study by the European Association for clean transport Transport & Environment, private jets are 50 times more polluting than railroads and 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger.
A single private jet may produce two tonnes of CO2 in just one hour. An typical trip in one emits roughly the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving a petrol vehicle 16 times the length of the UK, or around 860 miles, from Paris to Rome.
While the annual CO2 production of the average person is around seven metric tonnes.
In all, Greenpeace discovered in March that private aircraft emissions have skyrocketed in Europe, totaling 5,300,000 tonnes of CO2 over the previous three years.
This is a little bit more what Uganda, a nation with over 46,000,000 people, generates in a year.
British environmental policy, according to Oliver Sidorczuk, co-director of Zero Hour, the cross-party campaign for the Climate & Ecology Bill, is at best ‘poor’ even as climate change worsens.
After the hottest summer on record, the UK Government should be accelerating the transition to a zero-carbon, environmentally beneficial future rather than approving additional oil, gas and coal initiatives, said he.
Sunak must work with other world leaders to present a “people-powered plan to reverse nature’s decline,” which will help to reduce rising fuel prices and generate green jobs.
‘This should be Rishi Sunak’s top concern,’ Sidorczuk continued, ‘and possibly something for him to think about during his next helicopter or private jet trip.’