Opponents of London Heathrow Airport’s proposed expansion are fighting the wrong battle, according to a leading climate change expert.
Speaking to The Observer, Jim Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, claimed that protestors should instead be targeting coal power plants, which he suggested causes 80 per cent of the planet’s environmental problems.
Mr Hansen was quoted by the weekly newspaper as saying: “I don’t think it’s helpful to be trying to prevent air flight.”
The construction of a third runway at Heathrow will bring the number of flights handled at the airport to more than 700,000 annually by 2030, which is a significant rise from the current number of 480,000.
