Campaign against Climate Change is among over 250 organisations supporting the following open letter to national governments.

You can support as an individual by signing the petition

In the middle of the ongoing Corona crisis, while the world struggles against the virus and countless workers are losing their incomes, the aviation industry is demanding huge and unconditional taxpayer-backed bailouts. Yet, in recent years, the industry strongly opposed any attempts to end its unfair tax exemptions and refused to contribute meaningfully to global emission reduction goals – which would require measures to significantly reduce the scale of aviation.  

Not only is aviation already responsible for 5-8% of global climate impact, mostly caused by a wealthy minority of frequent flyers, but the sector also assumes that it can continue growing. Enormous profits were made in the last decades, off the backs of low-paid workers and to the detriment of the climate.

Workers affected by the current crisis need support, but we shouldn’t let the aviation industry get away with privatising profit while the public pays for its losses. Without addressing the structural problems that have left our societies and economies so vulnerable to crises like this one, we will be even more vulnerable to the next ones as inequalities between and within countries continue to grow and the ecological and climate emergencies worsen. 

Bailouts must not allow the aviation sector to return to business as usual after Covid-19 has been defeated: any public money has to ensure that workers and the climate are put first.

At the moment the UK lags behind other European countries when it comes to home energy efficiency - and also in fuel poverty, and excess winter deaths. As well as investing in insulating our existing housing stock, the Committee on Climate Change has urged the government to ensure that new homes are built to ultra-high energy efficiency standards, as well as being water-efficient and resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Action on this is well overdue - the Zero Carbon Homes standard was scrapped by George Osborne in 2015, just before it came into force.

Now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are proposing new regulations which would actually weaken energy efficiency requirements, and prevent local authorities from setting their own higher standards.