‘Less accurate than a children’s comic’: Ryanair chief dismisses climate report

The leaders of Ryanair and Airlines for Europe (A4E) have criticised the findings of a report released earlier this week that says the airline industry has been engaged in “anti-climate lobbying”. “I don’t think we should give this report too much time or credibility,” says Ryanair group chief executive Michael O’Leary during A4E’s annual Aviation Summit Thursday. “You’ll find more factual accuracy in a children’s comic than appeared in this rubbish yesterday,” he alleges. The report from UK-based think tank InfluenceMap claims that the airline sector is “lobbying against EU-level policies such as the sustainable aviation fuels blending mandate and the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), while also trying to weaken the international carbon offsetting scheme, CORSIA”. At the same time, airlines have “initiated extensive, climate-focused PR campaigns to deflect growing concern from governments and the public over the sector’s climate footprint”, it alleges. InfluenceMap says its findings are based on “nearly 800 evidence pieces as well as dozens of documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests”.<br/>