Better Transport

8 December: Make no mistake. The Committee on Climate Change has shown that the Government's airport expansion plans are totally incompatible with stopping climate change.

The CCC's report is couched in the most tactful language possible. Rather than tell the Government what they didn't want to hear, they've outlined some ways in which a much smaller airport expansion programme could be done without breaching our climate change goals. But doing so would be electoral suicide.

The main solution - forcing other sectors, notably energy, to make bigger cuts - sounds great as a headline. But in practice it means that home heating, gas and electric, will become much more expensive, driving millions of people into fuel poverty. Even then we'd have to chose between expanding Heathrow and regional airports.

The Government has a very clear choice, and just one question to ask itself. Faced with a choice between unaffordable energy and airport expansion, how many people would vote for more flights?