Despair among climate campaigners as Heathrow Airport smashes annual flights record
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Heathrow Airport has revealed a record year for passenger numbers, causing despair among climate campaigners. In 2024, more than 83.9 million passengers travelled through Heathrow Airport - 4.7 million more than in 2023, and three million more than the previous record from 2019. The London travel hub expected the figure to reach an even higher figure in 2025.
Climate groups and campaigners have expressed their dismay at the record-smashing figures, as reducing flight numbers is considered a key part of the effort to reduce climate change fueling emissions. By 2050, passenger air traffic from EU airports will more than double compared with 2019, undermining the industry's own green initiatives, Transport and Environment (T&E) said, reports Sky News.
A Just Stop Oil representative stated: "Charles Darwin is turning in his grave, and not because it was spray painted with the message '1.5 IS DEAD' by two Just Stop Oil supporters this morning. Darwin would be hugely disappointed in humanity. "We've failed to heed his advice, to learn from his discoveries, and have actively brought about a preventable sixth mass extinction. 1.5 degrees — the limit that was set ten years ago in the Paris Agreement — is dead. 2024 was the first year on record with a global average temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
"Our Governments have failed to protect us and continue to fail in responding to the climate crisis we currently face. On this very day, the death toll in California rises to 24 people, as out-of-control wildfires devastate the state. In short, we're pretty f***ed. But that doesn't mean that it's time to give up, that there's nothing that can be done.".
