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Civil Aviation Bill

I suspect that there is a broad consensus in all parts of the House on the need to sort out the problem, but I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench colleagues propose to divide on this amendment to test that consensus. This is one of the most critical challenges that our society faces. When Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, gave evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, he said that climate change is a bigger threat to our survival than terrorism. We have to address the damage that the doubling or trebling of carbon emissions, resulting from the expansion of freight and passenger air transport, will do to the environment that we hand on to our children.