For those who are interested, the Green Party report is available in full here:
Aviation's Economic Downside
Selected elements of the summary (pertinent to the posts above) are:
S1 Aviation is the most highly-polluting transport mode on earth, and its pollution constitutes a major hidden cost to the economy. Aviation is also subsidised directly and indirectly by the taxpayer, and is a major drain on the UK balance of payments.
S2 The health costs of air pollution from the UK aviation sector are estimated at more than £1.3 billion pounds a year.
S3 The economic costs of aircraft noise in the UK are estimated at £313 million a year.
S4 The costs of UK aviation's contribution to climate change are estimated at well over £2 billion a year in 2001. And unless the government radically changes its policy on the matter, aviation's CO2 emissions will have increased by 588% between 1992 and 2050, and its NOx pollution by 411%. By 2050, aviation could be contributing up to 15% of the overall global warming effect produced by human activities - with staggering economic costs.
S5 The overall hidden economic costs of the European Union's aviation sector are currently estimated at £14.3 billion a year - of which the UK alone accounts for £3.782 billion, or 26%. This doesn't include the costs of aviation accidents, accident services, and direct subsidies like the £500 million given to BAe to help it develop a new airbus.
S6 Hidden subsidies to the aviation sector also include the costs of building and maintaining the surface transport infrastructure which serves airports - costs which are growing fast in parallel with the growth of aviation.
S7 Aviation is under-taxed compared to most sectors. Flight tickets, aircraft and aviation fuel are zero-rated for VAT. HM Treasury collects £1 billion in air passenger duty per year, but forgoes £3 billion due to VAT zero-rating of aviation products and loss of excise revenue. Aviation fuel pays no tax at all, although if it were taxed at the same rate as unleaded petrol, this would raise some £5 billion a year. Effectively, society is subsidising the aviation industry through a colossal tax-break of £7 billion a year.
Dr Dave