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As Sustainable Aviation commented, the best route to a fully sustainable aviation industry is by cutting emissions, not cutting demand or access to flying.

The Committee have set the industry a long-term challenge and it is one that the industry is confident it can meet and even go beyond - the Sustainable Aviation Road Map, published in 2008, shows how this can be achieved.

The Committee has told the Government that increased taxes may be necessary to curb emissions if technology does not progress sufficiently quickly by 2050. However, the most effective way to pay for, and incentivise the reduction of, aviation emissions is through a global emissions trading scheme – the whole industry supports this approach and hopes that agreement on this can be achieved at Copenhagen in December.

The worst way to approach this issue is through unilateral action to stop people flying using tax, such as Air Passenger Duty, which simply penalises ordinary families who only fly occasionally and is, in any case, environmentally ineffective since none of the revenue goes towards improving environmental performance.