'Double standard' on climate change: helicopters allowed but car use needs to be cut

Wednesday, 21 September 2022

There has been a spate of resource consent applications for increased helicopter flights in residential Auckland. (File photo)

Auckland Council has been accused of holding different standards on cutting climate emmissions, asking people to reduce car use but not helicopter use.

Council's Transport Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) calls for Aucklanders to cut car use in half, but does not address private aircraft.

The portion of Auckland’s aircraft captured within the TERP’s greenhouse gas inventory represents 7% of the city’s total transport emissions, or about 343,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.

That 7% only accounts for private aircraft which are refuelled at Auckland Airport.

Private aerodromes, such as the Auckland Heliport at Onehunga were not captured, and no recommendations were made on how to address these emissions.

Elena Keith of the Quiet Sky Waitematā group said there seemed to be a “double standard” when it came to climate policy, between a wealthy few and the wider population.

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Aviation fuel or jet fuel emits around 3kgs of carbon for each kilogram of fuel according to some estimates. (File photo)

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Quiet Sky Waiheke has made a submission on Auckland’s Council’s TERP asking for a plan change to prohibit helicopters in residential areas.

“We encourage people to take a look at their rates bill and check how much they are contributing to climate change, and then consider that the council still allows helicopters,” Keith said.

Keith was also concerned by a recent opinion piece by council chief of strategy Megan Tyler which appeared to suggest the council was holding back on addressing choppers over potential legal opposition from helicopter users with deep pockets.

It said: “any changes to the Unitary Plan to make recreational helicopter activity prohibited in residential and coastal areas would need to meet an extremely high legal bar, and there would likely be substantial opposition.”

Dirk Hudig and Don Mathieson wants to stop helicopter flights out of suburban Herne Bay.

In Quiet Sky’s submission on the TERP, it called on council to require carbon emissions to be a factor in resource consent decisions for helicopter flights.

“It’s a good document, but the aviation component is particularly anaemic and unlikely to achieve its targets. Its makes the council look impotent by having no suggested actions for itself,” it said.

The TERP does call to reduce aviation emissions by half, suggesting that air business travel could be replaced with faster interregional trains and coach buses, funded by the Government.

However, council said greenhouse gas inventory used to inform the TERP did not actually take leisure or business flights into account.

In other words, how much private helicopters contribute to Auckland’s transport emissions is hard to identify.

There’s no doubt cars pollute, and, that Aucklanders could reduce use. The TERP attributes 72% or 3.5 million tonnes each year to cars, and shows people still take a car even if they’re only travelling a couple of kilometres.

However, helicopters are much more carbon intensive compared to their overall utility.

One Landcare Research NZ report estimates that aviation fuel emits 2.6kgs of CO2 per litre, while international organisation Carbon Independent places it at 3.8kgs a litre.

As a theoretical example, this would mean an Airbus H130 chopper, which was the subject of a recent consent application in Herne Bay, would expel around 340kgs of CO2 per hour.

In comparison, an average car expels 8.5kgs of CO2 an hour at 50kph, according to Government estimates.

A trip in an Airbus H130 helicopter to the Tara Iti golf course near Mangawhai, for example, would take 20 minutes and expel around 113kgs of CO2. Driving there would take an hour and a half and produce 17.1kgs.

Stuff asked if it was fair for council to expect people to reduce car use while high polluting aircraft was allowed to continue.

“The council has taken a leadership role in this space, which means leading in areas where we have control over the decision-making, and advocating in those where we don’t,” Jacques Victor said, council’s general manager of strategy and research.

The emissions plan does conceive of implementing “low emissions zones” that restrict use of private transport, but a council spokesperson said they had not been considered for restricting private aircraft.

“Our main role will be one of advocacy to central government and encouraging the aviation industry to play its part, partly through the development of low emission aviation fuels and vehicles.”