Airlines should pay for CO2 removal if Heathrow expands, say climate advisers

Climate Change Committee says government cannot expand airport without requiring aviation industry to clean up its emissions

Heathrow airport should be allowed to expand only if airlines pay for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the government’s climate advisers have said.

Building a third runway and new terminals, as some in government want to do, would breach the UK’s carbon budgets and make reaching net zero by 2050 impossible, on current policies, according to the Climate Change Committee.