When will the finger-pointing stop?

OPINION

There is no shortage of people who can explain what someone else should do about aviation’s emissions.

The harder question is what each is prepared to deliver themselves.

The latest Heathrow debate brings that question into focus. The BBC reports that the Climate Change Committee wants the aviation industry to bear the costs of cleaner flying before expansion can be reconciled with the country’s climate commitments. Airlines UK, meanwhile, warns about affordability and argues that aviation cannot carry the task of scaling carbon removals alone. BBC reporting

These are consequential disagreements. Who pays matters. So does whether the technology can be deployed in time. Neither question will be settled by passing responsibility around until it lands with someone willing to accept it.

At some point, a debate about obligations has to produce obligations that people can act on.

Responsibility needs an address

Government should set out a durable framework: the emissions outcome required, the timetable, the rules for compliance and the consequences of falling short. If public support is necessary to establish a new industry, ministers should explain its purpose, its limits and what the public receives in return.

Airlines should be equally specific. Support for a long-term climate target should translate into purchasing decisions and commercial commitments that help credible suppliers invest. Where those commitments are unaffordable, the industry should identify the obstacle and the remedy it proposes, with enough detail for the proposal to be tested.

Fuel developers have responsibilities too. They should distinguish an announced project from a financed one, prospective capacity from operating output, and technical progress from a dependable supply contract. A sector asking for confidence must make its progress measurable.

Airport operators seeking expansion should explain the assumptions beneath their climate plans and how those plans change if fuel supply, costs or technology deployment disappoint.

Each party should have something concrete to answer for.

SAF cannot carry every promise

There is another danger in this discussion: asking sustainable aviation fuel to settle an argument that extends well beyond fuel.

The CCC’s proposed pathway combines SAF, efficiency improvements, lower demand growth and engineered carbon removals. It also calls for contingency policies because deployment of new technologies may fall behind the required timetable. Those are recommendations, not evidence that the necessary capacity is already available. Climate Change Committee advice

SAF should therefore be judged on the contribution it can demonstrably make. That means qualifying fuel supplied, credible lifecycle emissions performance and a realistic route to further production.

Treating future fuel as an answer to every difficult question puts pressure on the very industry expected to deliver it. It invites promises to outrun engineering and makes disappointment more damaging when projects encounter ordinary industrial difficulties.

Ambition needs a schedule that survives contact with construction, commissioning and commercial operation.

Put the commitments on the record

A useful next step would be a public delivery schedule, updated annually, with named responsibilities and milestones.

For government, that would mean policy decisions and implementation dates. For airlines, meaningful procurement commitments. For producers, financing, construction and production milestones. For airport operators, explicit dependencies and the consequences of missing them.

Commercially sensitive contract details can remain private. The public should still be able to distinguish a funded commitment from an aspiration.

The schedule should also say what happens when delivery slips. Who must respond? Which assumptions must be revised? What changes if a technology costs more or supplies less than expected?

Those questions belong at the beginning of an expansion decision. Leaving them until later transfers uncertainty to whoever has the least ability to manage it.

There is room for a serious argument about Heathrow, competitiveness and the cost of flying. There must also be room for an honest answer when the evidence does not yet support a promise.

Every demand made of another party should come with a commitment from the person making it: a decision, an investment, a contract or a deadline.

I think if everyone keeps playing ‘after you’, nothing will happen.