Copy and paste the text below into an email to your MP and don’t forget to personalise the bits in bold.
Dear [Name of your MP],
I am writing as a constituent of [your constituency] to raise my concerns about aviation’s effect on the climate.
Government and industry is relying on so-called ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel as the main way to decarbonise aviation. However, people across the environmental sector have serious doubts about how effective this will be. Even Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, has pointed out that there won’t be enough SAF to sustain our current or future flying habits.
Technological solutions such as hydrogen and electric planes could offer emissions reductions in the future, but they are not ready now – and now is when we need to reduce emissions.
Offsets have been proven time and again not to work, and come with serious social justice implications.
Rather than rely on ineffective or unproven measures to decarbonise aviation, we need to introduce measures that will reduce the number of flights we take.
Will you support the following measures?
- No airport expansion across the UK
- A tax on domestic airline fuel
- A rising tax on frequent flyers
- A ban on domestic flights where there’s a direct rail alternative of 4.5 hours or less (to include the two most-used air routes in the UK, Lon-Edinburgh/Glasgow, both of which are competitive in terms of travel time with the train)
- A ban on advertising for flights
[Add information about your personal situation. You could mention the impact of aircraft noise and/or emissions if you live near an airport, or you could talk about the effect of flying upon climate change, or you could refer to social and climate justice issues when it comes to aviation.]
Finally, climate-friendly behaviour is more likely to spread if people in positions of power lead by example. Therefore I’m also asking if you would take the Flight Free UK challenge to abstain from flying for a year, to reduce emissions and shift the culture when it comes to flying-by-default.
You can find out more about this at www.flightfree.co.uk
Best wishes,
[your name]
[your postcode]
