Climate Change
25.04.07Speaking at a business breakfast meeting of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce Lord Soley, Campaign Director of Future Heathrow said “Mayor Ken Livingston is making a very serious mistake in underestimating the competition to Heathrow airport. Heathrow has already been overtaken by Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich in the number of destinations served. Soon it will be overtaken by Milan, Rome and Madrid. His negative attitude to one of London’s premier assets is very damaging. If the Mayor were to be successful in preventing the expansion of Heathrow then London’s position as a key international centre for business and commerce would be threatened.” Pointing to the importance of Heathrow to London’s population, Lord Soley said “The Mayor is rightly proud of London’s cultural and ethnic diversity and it is important that people are able to maintain links with their family and friends overseas. The recent Civil Aviation Authority passenger survey showed that 33% of the people using the airport were visiting friends and relatives.” On the important issue of climate change Lord Soley said “Virtually everyone now takes climate change very seriously and that includes nearly everyone in the aviation industry but we need a planned reaction, not a panic reaction. The Stern report indicates the way forward and everyone in business and all of us in our personal lives need to do our best to reduce carbon emissions. But we will do no one any favours if we target Heathrow’s modernisation and expansion in the naïve belief that this will solve the problem of climate change. The majority of the population know that we need a more sophisticated response to this problem”.
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