There’s an exquisite kind of irony in the government releasing its “Jet Zero” strategy, outlining how it will “reach net zero aviation and deliver guilt-free flying”, on the same day that the UK is set to hit its highest temperature on record, and with Europe literally burning amid raging wildfires.
No one but the most diehard of climate change deniers can continue to dismiss the fact that the world is hotting up at an alarming pace; the evidence is right in front of us, written in the rising mercury in giant, unignorable letters. And yet this latest report from the Department for Transport (DfT), which talks excitedly of “cutting-edge industries”, “new technologies” and “new infrastructure” – even employing the phrase “the sky’s the limit” to kick it all off – has its head buried so deep in the sand it’s practically reached the Earth’s molten core (which is only marginally hotter than central London right now).
