Environmental meeting

This Thursday (15th march) I will be chairing an event that both excites and scares me. I have invited Richard Jeffery (manager of Edinburgh Airport) and Duncan MacLaren (Chief Exec of Friends of the Earth) to debate air travel, climate change and building an economy for a global village. I did this because, as a decision-maker I know I am pulled both ways on this. The environmentalist in me says that I know air travel is a huge polluter and we need to ask serious questions about just what sustainable air travel is. Yet as a politician with a responsibility for encouraging the economy not just of the city but the nation, given that air travel infact only contributes around 2 1/2% (according to some) to our carbon emissions and pays such a huge role in our economic success, can we really afford to undermine it, surely managing its effects is a better approach.There are huge tensions between these positions and so I wanted to see if there was any common ground from which I could begin to shape my own political response to the questions each side poses. I will let you know if it helps or hinders my decisions on these issues.