Coventry Airport's Passenger Terminal

Coventry Airport has lost its High Court Appeal for expanding its passenger terminal. Hooray!

The idea that the airport's expansion was "vital for the economic health and prestige" of Coventry is wrong. All of our investments in carbon-neutral housing, in the utopian visions in yesterday's Coventry Telegraph (self-driving cars, wind turbines on lampposts), will be swamped by the impact of an expansion of aviation.

Since aviation fuel is not taxed, cheap flights have become the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe. Each adult in the UK averages 603 kg of carbon emissions from aviation per year. The US, in comparison, is only 275 kg per adult per year.

If we want "economic health" in Coventry in the future, it's needs to be a low-carbon kind of health.