The High Court has ruled in favour of the Secretary of State’s decision earlier this year to overturn the advice of planning inspectors and permit further massive expansion of Luton Airport.
The Luton Airport case is a watershed moment for the UK’s climate future. The government’s expert advisers have warned that we cannot meet Net Zero while continuing to expand aviation on the basis of partial or outdated climate assessments. Yet the Government is still approving airport growth using narrow CO₂ accounting that excludes inbound flights and ignores aviation’s much larger non-CO₂ warming impacts.
The Supreme Court’s Finch ruling made it clear that all significant climate effects must be assessed, even if scientific methods are still developing. The High Court’s decision cements a planning system that looks backwards while the climate crisis accelerates. LADACAN’s challenge aimed to push the system toward rational, evidence-based decisions that properly account for aviation’s full climate footprint.
That is why it’s so important for us to consider an appeal: the outcome matters not only for Luton, but for every future airport proposal in the UK. This is a watershed moment, with the costs of climate change damage increasing and still no realistic and proven pathways to decarbonise aviation.
We urge all those who care about reducing the environmental impacts of aviation to donate to our crowdfunding appeal by clicking this link: Crowdfunding appeal