Airport expansion vs global warming and climate change

What's true for the 3rd runway at Heath row and for expansion at other UK Airports is true for the expansion pans of Newcastle Airport. See the press release here

Open letter (19th Feb 2026 - see it here) sent to the government’s independent climate advisors, the Climate Change Committee, from two key environmental organisations lays bare the incompatibility of airport expansion – including a third runway at Heathrow – with UK climate targets

Niall Toru, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, said: “The CCC’s credibility depends on it calling the science as it is, regardless of what ministers may want to hear. We urge the CCC to ensure its recommendations remain independent and evidence based.

“The reality is that a third runway at Heathrow is incompatible with our legally binding climate targets. The numbers only work with wishful thinking and technologies that don't currently exist at scale – and may well never.”

Dr Douglas Parr, Policy Director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Twenty years ago, when the government wanted to build more dirty coal plants, they described their proposals as ‘CCS-ready’. But of course, Carbon Capture and Storage wasn’t ready, and still isn’t.

“Now that they want to build new runways, we’re told that their planes’ unabated carbon pollution will be magicked away through a combination of CCS, Direct Air Capture and Sustainable Aviation Fuel. But none of these technologies are ready for the job either, and may never be.