I'm Simon. I'm here to tell you that you're listening
to the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast from
Salix. Welcome to the Decarbonisation Dialogue.
Welcome to Delivering on Climate Change, our
collective challenge. I'm Hannah Walker and I
believe that the best way to communicate a message
is by being passionate about what you are talking
about. Through that passion, I believe that you
take people with you and create action using
your influence to make a change and make a difference.
Our task today is to get all of us to net zero.
Today I have Celeste Hicks as my guest, so thank
you very much to Celeste. Celeste works at the
Aviation Environment Federation. She joined in
2024 as policy manager. Her background is in
campaigning and communications, having previously
worked as a journalist at BBC World Service for
15 years and as a communications manager at Transport
and Environment. She has had roles at the UK
Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and
is also the author of three books, including
Expansion Rebellion. And Celeste is also volunteer
campaigner on Safe Streets for Children and Clean
Air for Mums for Lungs at her children's school.
Welcome to Celeste. Hello. Thank you for joining
us. So let's start by talking about your own
career path and how you've pursued that because
you're a former journalist, a campaigner, I think
you'll call yourself a campaigner, author, and
you're also now helping shape policy. How did
you get to this place? The short answer is that
I suppose as I got older, I started to just think
a little bit more about what I consider to be
the key skills that I have. And I started to
think more about the sort of impact of some of
my career choices on the environment. And I also
had children. So I think, you know, when I was
working at BBC World Service, I was traveling
a lot. So obviously when the children came along,
it got a bit difficult to travel as much as I
had done in the past. And then I started to feel
that if I wasn't able to be there in person,
I was feeling a little bit that I wasn't doing
my best in that job. And then obviously I kind
of started to think about the impact of all my
flying as well in terms of how that worked in
the climate crisis. So yeah, I think it's been
a long journey, mostly prompted by motherhood,
I would say, that's kind of brought me to think
more about, you know, what do I really want to
do? And yeah, I think in the end I kind of saw
that there was a great nexus between communications
and policy and that you can't really have one
without the other and I think sometimes people
see communications as being one thing and they
don't think the communicators don't necessarily
engage on the policy and vice versa you have
a lot of policy professionals who don't really
think about how to explain what they're trying
to do to to the wider public so I think yeah
sort of just naturally evolved into this space.
So writing very much a key to that development
and how you've worked throughout the years and
you mentioned travelling with the BBC World Service
because of course you mentioned flying, it was
an inconvenience but of course now you're thinking
probably about flying in a very different way
as well regarding your work. So can you, which
moves us on to the Aviation Environment Federation,
can you tell us a little bit about that organisation
because you're campaigning on aviation's impacts.
for people in the environment. Can you tell us
a little bit about that noise and air pollution
and what's going on in our skies? Yeah, so the
Aviation and Environment Federation is actually
celebrating its 50th anniversary very shortly
in September. So it started as an organization
that was reflecting the concerns of communities
mostly living around airports. who were bothered
about air pollution and noise so sort of in the
1970s and 1980s there was a big increase in flights
and you know anybody that's lived under a flight
path. will know how loud airplanes can be flying
over people's houses. So it was a coalition of
groups who came together to sort of reflect the
interests of those people. A lot of work that
we do is on noise and air pollution and then
in recent years we've had to sort of take on
the question of climate change and emissions
from planes which are large and significant and
often get overlooked by people in the climate
change debate. And we also work on all kinds
of issues to do with environment. So at the moment,
even today, we've been talking about PFAs, which
were used in firefighting foam for a long time.
And there's a big problem with PFAs around airports.
And we also look at biodiversity impacts from
airports as well. So really, yeah, we do what
we say on the tin, anything to do with aviation
and environment. Can you tell us a little bit
about what the impact your policies are having
at that national level and global, even global
level? Yeah, so I think AEF has always situated
itself as trying to be a kind of well -informed
NGO voice. go for anything dramatic protests
or anything like that. But what we try to do
is make sure that our arguments are backed up
with really solid research. And so obviously
we've been going for 50 years. So we do have
a vast body of research that we've done over
the years. And our website is a treasure trove
of information if people are interested. So I
think that gives us a really important role to
play because we are trusted by a number of organizations
and we do get asked a lot to be involved in things.
So we have been involved in quite a lot of government
meetings at the DFT and the Civil Aviation Authority
and we were recently asked to call to give evidence
at the Environmental Audit Committee. and several
of our team members are sitting currently on
the government's Jet Zero Council which is looking
at different ways to decarbonize aviation. So
I think we really have an impact when it comes
to considered policy that really looks into the
detail and trying to get across the complexity
of these things and the competing interests.
and you mentioned about the global level so AEF
was one of the founder members of the international
coalition on sustainable aviation which is a
group of NGOs which have observer status at the
IKO so that's the the UN body for aviation at
their annual many meetings across the year and
there's an environmental part to that called
CAPE and we always go to those meetings and represent
the collective views of NGO communities so you
know that can be quite slow process because it's
a UN body so obviously everybody in all the countries
of the world get to have their view when these
meetings take place but you know the detail is
really where things are crucial there and so
we've been following that for a long time. You
mentioned there's a lot of references there to
various organizations and also there are a lot
of targets we're facing. Now, I've got one figure
here, for example. In April 2021, the government
announced it will include the UK's share of international
and shipping emissions in its carbon budgets
and its binding target to achieve net zero by
2050. This means that the entire UK aviation
sector will be part of the commitment to reduce
economy -wide emissions by 78 % below 1990 levels
by 2035. What do you think when you think of
the targets? Are we completely off target. It's
interesting you should mention the target to
include international aviation and shipping because
actually that was something that AEF campaigned
quite heavily for and we were very pleased when
the government committed to it because previously
what happened was because aviation is between
countries there was a bit of disagreement. in
terms of who owns the emissions so should it
be the country where the flight's leaving from
or the nationality of the passenger and nobody
really addressed that at the UN system so for
a long time they were left out. However, even
though the government committed in 2021 to include
those, we still haven't seen the statutory instrument
that's necessary. So the secondary legislation
needs to be laid before parliament to make sure
that actually happens. And so that's kind of
another thing that we're campaigning on at the
moment. And to go back to your question about
target, I mean, the short answer is it looks
like we are. not making very much progress in
aviation towards those targets. So, for example,
if we go back to the government's Jet Zero strategy,
which was launched in 2021. Now, of course, sorry,
2022. Now, of course, we know that the pandemics
happened since then, but a lot of the analysis
has been done on the trends. So not including
the impact of the pandemic. But it was when this
was launched in 2022, the government then the
previous government said we would really like
2019 to be the highest. level of aviation emissions,
we would like this to be remembered as the year
of peak aviation emissions. And we know that
the provisional figures for 2024 are out now.
We know that their rivers are slightly higher
than they were, at least for international aviation
emissions in 2024. And we know that passenger
numbers are continuing to go up in 2025. So,
you know, we don't think it's early days to be
able to make a proper analysis of that. But it
looks like things are not going in the right
direction. So it's quite difficult to imagine
that there will be huge progress in the next
three to four years to hit those 2030 targets
especially if airport expansions go ahead and
you know obviously that means more flights. We
try not to sort of focus on too many of the individual
targets and look at the sort of bigger picture
of the trajectory. and we can say with confidence
that at the moment the 2024 provisional figures
are giving us the impression that the emissions
are not going down at all from aviation. So we
know we're flying all over the place, we only
have to look up in our skies and as you say you
don't even need to live directly under a flight
path to know that there's a lot of movement going
on up there in the big airports as well as obviously
a lot of the smaller airfields. So you've got
some clear asks at the Aviation Environment Federation
around net zero emissions, including financial
measures to limit flying around, such as air
miles tax. It'd be nice to talk about some of
that and how that would impact all of us, because
there is also some basics in there. Just don't
fly as much, getting those airport staff possibly
to transition to green jobs. What's your response
in terms of getting people to look at alternatives?
So the idea is that if you look at who actually
flies in the UK, the people who fly multiple
times a year are predominantly richer people
with more disposable income and we know that
a huge chunk of the flights that depart from
the UK are for leisure purposes and the airports
are kind of quite open about that, that they
want to open more leisure destinations. So you
know what we try to do is raise awareness of
the fact that a lot of that growth in airports
and growth in passenger numbers is being taken
by richer people and if you look at the impact
of flying compared to other activities that people
do the impact of flying is is huge it's it's
one of the most climate impactful things you
can do you know in a negative way not in a good
way so i think what we want to make sure people
understand is that you know no one's saying don't
ever fly again but we're just sort of trying
to raise this question of like is the never -ending
growth in the number of flights actually serving
anybody other than rich leisure passengers who
want to go on more and more holidays and do we
think that that's a social good and if it's a
social good is it worth the carbon cost that
will eventually be placed on all of us because
we will have to cover the costs of that in the
future. What you were mentioning about the what
we call a frequent flyer levy is the idea that
the more that people fly the more they pay so
it's kind of like a tax on people who fly. We
haven't actually developed this research ourselves
but our partners possible and the New Economics
Foundation have developed this research quite
a lot and they propose anybody who flies more
than six times a year. as ultra frequent flyers
and the idea is that they pay more and obviously
we've seen some progress from the government
with the increase in air passenger duty on private
jets which came in the Chancellor's autumn statement
and so we want more of that we want more of taxing
the private jets we want more of taxing first
-class passengers and business passengers because
they are more polluting because obviously they
take up more space than an economy passenger,
so the admissions per passenger in first class
and business class are more. Just to put that
in context, it's the UK passenger service survey.
that shows that only about 50 % of the UK population
fly at all in any given year. So you know 50
% of people don't fly and yet the pollution is
being done by a tiny proportion of wealthy people.
We're just really keen to get that across and
make people understand that you know those costs
will be borne by everybody and is that fair?
Technology, let's talk about technology for a
moment because do you think that's part of problem
or do you think it's part of the solution? Because
you're asking and wanting to see the aviation
industry invest in more research and development
of net zero energy technologies available. How
do you feel about that at the moment, the technologies
and how they can be used to help us turn things
around? Zero emissions flight. I'm sure will
be possible in the future, but right now it's
a huge challenge just because of the weight of
the batteries if you're looking at electric flight
and the relative power that you need to take
for a plane to take off. It's not like a car
in terms of how much propulsion you need. So
we're very behind as a global, you know, the
global approach to zero emissions flight is very
behind. we think that probably at some point
that those technological challenges will be solved
but they're certainly not being solved now and
the big aircraft manufacturers which really is
just Airbus and Boeing are not putting the research
and development money into these technologies
at all. Airbus recently announced that its hydrogen
plane technology program was being delayed by
several years so you know they've been saying
for a while that they'll have a hydrogen plane
by 2035 but they've now delayed that. The other
option you have is to decarbonize the fuels.
So obviously I think we've all learnt some lessons
about biofuels in the past and how they can indirectly
cause land use changes which actually can paradoxically
increase emissions if you're chopping down virgin
rainforest to plant palm oil to put into cars
and then burn. So the UK SAF mandate, the Sustainable
Aviation Fuel Mandate, came out at the beginning
of this year and the idea is to use waste -based
feedstocks for producing aviation That's great
and we're supportive of that and we want to see
more of it. Unfortunately, it's not kind of at
the moment things are not going quite as quickly
as they need to. We need to scale from a tiny,
tiny proportion of sustainable aviation fuel
available now to meet our 2030 and 2040 and ultimately
2050 targets. And even the aviation industry
knows that sustainable aviation fuel is not the
answer, the full answer. There will be other
things will be needed. including things like
greenhouse gas removals, the zero emissions technology
that I told you about. So these are the reasons
why we find it difficult to understand why you
would take the risk of increasing airport capacity
and inducing more demand by allowing airports
to expand at a time where really the decarbonisation
technologies are still in their infancy and they're
not scaling as fast as we need them to. So we're
not going fast enough and the technologies could
be there but there needs to be a real kind of
commitment and energy about driving those forward.
So I'm interested in your work with your members
and those kind of experiences those people have
because you work with the Parliamentary Transport
Committee, Environmental Audit Committee. and
a number of organizations, the Airport Council,
International Airport, carbon accreditation schemes,
etc. But we're really interested, I'm interested
to know about your members' experiences of, we're
looking to the future, but what is it like? What
do they tell you about the noise and the emissions
in terms of living under that flight path? What
do people tell you? What do they come to you?
What kind of stories do people tell you about
what it's like? So I think our members are one
of the really sort of most important factors
of AEF because we do represent communities and
you know other NGOs don't necessarily have that
community voice that we employ when we go to
speak to the government and I think it opens
doors for us because we do represent people and
we can speak on behalf of people and communities
and I think that gives us extra credibility when
we're presenting our ideas to the government.
I mean the stories we most often hear are I mean
you know obviously the biggest problem is night
flight noise for people that live near airports
so people who have been woken up by planes coming
in very late at night early in the morning and
even during the night. There are rules around
night flights in the UK but there are many thousands
of sort of dispensations they're called every
year where planes are delayed and therefore they
have to come in in the middle of the night. and
you know that also goes to during the day as
well if people are sitting in their gardens trying
to enjoy the gardens and enjoy peace and quiet
they've got planes flying over it can be very
triggering for a number of people who sort of
feel you know who are bothered by noise and just
find that their sort of personal space and privacy
has been invaded by that. There's a huge problem
with air pollution around airports and some of
it's to do with traffic. so people driving to
the airports and road congestion around airports
but a lot of it is also to do with what's coming
out of the back of the planes as they come over
communities and land and dropping ultrafine particles
and other things such as nitrogen dioxide, sulphurs
dropping on communities as they fly over. There's
also all kinds of impacts to do with for example
children's learning, children that live in schools
near big airports. kind of can't concentrate
because of the noise and the interruptions and
there's been a lot of research recently about
the impact on people's cardiovascular health
and some quite clear evidence that there's a
direct link between people who live on the flight
paths and increase cardiovascular problems. So
you know all the people that contact us are living
this in one way or another. and we got contacted
a lot by people where there are threats of airport
expansion so people realize that their house
which doesn't have any aircraft noise currently
may well be affected by aircraft noise in the
future and they don't know where to go they don't
know what help they can get. We try to help them.
We also get contacted a lot by what's known as
general aviation so this is kind of like private
pilots and small aerodromes where there's people
flying their own planes and helicopters and private
jets for some of them airports like Farnborough.
And there really isn't really much regulation
around those at all. The flight paths around
those can change quite suddenly. So people can
suddenly find themselves bothered by multiple
planes and small, loud aircraft going over at
lower altitudes. And we try to reflect all of
those concerns when we get the opportunity to
meet with the CAA and the Department for Transport.
Do you feel optimistic or do you feel that you've
still got a huge amount of work to do? or never
-ending actually? I mean it is never -ending
and I think what's interesting about it is that
what you do in aviation touches on all the other
sectors and I think this is kind of one of the
things that we spend a lot of time doing is just
looking for example if you want to create what's
known as e -fuels which are basically synthetic
fuels using captured carbon and green hydrogen
which is produced using renewable sources. often
touted as one of the best solutions for decarbonizing
aviation but you know our research has led us
to understand that that means you're taking away
renewable electricity from the grid which is
also needed to decarbonize people's homes and
to decarbonize transport so all of the solutions
that you look at for aviation there's already
kind of other economy -wide impacts. And so,
you know, I think that's the bit that keeps us
busy is trying to pull those elements together.
I think part of the reason for that is just sort
of historically aviation is just kind of, you
know, I'm sorry to use this phrase, but under
the radar. You know, it's been quite a small
proportion of global emissions up until quite
recently. You know, when Kyoto Protocol was formed
in 1990, it was a tiny proportion of international
emissions. So no one was really worried about
aviation. And obviously, there's been enormous
growth in global aviation since then. But for
the aviation industry, they like to keep it like
that. They like to say, well, we're not that
big a problem. But the problem we're facing now
is that while other industries are decarbonizing,
we've made massive strides in the The grid intensity
of carbon we're doing really well on EVs. Aviation
is really not doing anything and I think that
it's frustrating right now because every way
we look at it you can see the impact of aviation.
In fact the climate change committee said in
the report to parliament recently on the the
progress towards net zero that if aviation doesn't
hurry up and get on with it, it's going to become
the biggest emitting sector in the UK and the
whole UK economy by 2014. And it's already emitting
more than the power sector is. Big questions
will be asked about that and need to be asked
about that. So I feel optimistic in the sense
that, you know, what I enjoy about this job is
the intellectual challenge of it because it's
fiendishly complicated and things fit in and
all kinds of technological advances and so. legislative
and planning bills and all of this stuff it all
comes together but actually however you look
at it like there's a big problem with aviation
and people are just hoping it goes away and it's
not going to. So I think, yeah, I think if you
think maybe 10 years down the road, I think we
will see a lot more progress because it is already
becoming obvious that aviation is way behind
what it needs to be. It clearly has to be addressed
because like you, I see a lot, I see directly
a lot of the passion that goes in from people
across the country addressing all of those buildings,
houses, homes, et cetera, to decarbonize. get
rid of, as I say, get rid of those old fossil
fuels, look at renewables, et cetera. And there
is a little bit of puzzle still about what's
going on up in the skies. And I don't think that
people will forget about it because your work
at the Aviation Environment Federation seems
to be making a difference. And it's good to see
that you've got a voice there. And thank you
very much. to Celeste for being a guest today
and talking about all things aviation. It's highly
complex and for sure there's still huge amounts
of challenges and I know we haven't got, we're
on a race so time is really not on our side in
terms of climate change. Thank you to Celeste
Hicks for joining us today from the Aviation
Environment Federation. There can be no doubt
that climate change is the biggest challenge
of our time. Today we must reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to slow global warming. Today we
must act for tomorrow adjusting our lifestyles
to current and future impacts of climate change.
Today we must use our collective wisdom to deliver
on our climate commitments. Today we work for
tomorrow's world. Don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast channels and please do email your
views and suggestions to podcast at salixfinance
.co .uk. We'd love to know what you think. Thank
you once again to Celeste for joining us today.
Thank you Celeste. Thank you. I'm Zoe Hurst and
I'm here to tell you that you've been listening
to the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast from
Salix. For more information about our work and
to find more content, please visit salixfinance
.co .uk forward slash podcasts.