Campaigners against the expansion of London’s Heathrow will take their legal battle to the Court of Appeal on Thursday in an attempt to block the planned £14bn scheme to build a third runway at the UK’s biggest airport.
Councils, residents, the mayor of London, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth will try for a second time to seek a judicial review of the government’s decision to expand the hub.
The High Court dismissed four separate cases earlier this year, ruling that the government had not breached its sustainable development duties by approving the plan to build a third runway.
The judges will also hear a fifth case brought the backers of a rival scheme to expand Heathrow, which was also rejected in May by the High Court. The claimants were given the go-ahead to challenge that ruling in July, with the hearing expected to last six days.
“Declaring a climate emergency while backing Heathrow’s third runway project shows the climate hypocrisy of our government,” said Jenny Bates, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
In the High Court challenge, claimants argued that the government had acted unlawfully by not taking into account the Paris climate change agreement, which committed signatories to limiting any global temperature rise to “well below” 2C. However, the court ruled that while the government had ratified the Paris agreement, it did not form part of UK law.
Environmental campaigners believe the government’s adoption of a new climate target in June, pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, strengthens their case.
“If the unavoidable increases in noise pollution and poorer air quality were not enough, the recent inclusion of a net zero carbon target in the Climate Change Act has tightened the noose around Heathrow expansion even further,” said Paul McGuinness, chair of the No 3rd Runway Coalition.
Climate groups say that the net zero goal is incompatible with an expanding aviation sector, because there are only very limited options for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of aircraft.
Commercial aviation accounts for about 2 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but several studies have shown that the warming impact of the sector is actually greater because most of the emissions are at high altitude.
Last month the Committee on Climate Change, the government’s official advisory body, said aviation was likely to be the biggest-emitting sector of the economy by 2050 and suggested that curbing demand for flying was one way to reduce aviation emissions.
Heathrow is operating near capacity, with almost 480,000 flights in 2018, and plans to expand the airport were first mooted 30 years ago. The first attempt to build a third runway failed in 2010 after a High Court ordered the government to review its plans following a judicial review by campaigners.
The government’s 2018 national policy statement, which recommended expanding Heathrow, said south-east England needed more airport capacity to support the UK’s “new trading relationships” after Brexit.
A Heathrow spokesman noted that “judicial reviews are common in infrastructure projects of this size”.
He added: “Our plans remain on track and we will support the Department for Transport throughout this process. We remain totally confident in the robust process that has got us to this point, including the extensive evidence gathered by the independent Airports Commission, multiple rounds of public consultation and the overwhelming cross-party support of parliament.”
