Ryanair: "irresponsible face of capitalism"
Europe's biggest low cost carrier, Ryanair was slammed over its "irresponsible" attitude to carbon emissions by UK environment minister Ian Pearson.
In a hard hitting attack on airlines, Mr Pearson branded the response of major US carriers on cutting C02 emissions as a "disgrace."
BA, which has done more than most to promote carbon offsetting, was also accused of "only just playing ball."
He said he was also angry with Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, over its opposition to current C02 emissions despite this being a main plank of the German government's current G8 presidency.
Mr Pearson, in an interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian, was quoted as saying that the attitude of Ryanair's ceo, Mr Michael O'Leary, was "just completely off the wall."
He added: "When it comes to climate change, Ryanair are not just the unacceptable face of capitalism, they are the irresponsible faced of capitalism.
"O'Leary just seems to take pride in refusing to recognise that climate change is a genuine problem."
His remarks come after the EU published plans to include aviation in its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for all flights with the EU by 2011 and by all flights either arriving in or departing from EU airports by 2012.
Under the ETS, airlines would be awarded an allowance of emissions. If they went under this figure, they could sell their surplus allowance and if they went over they would have to buy allowances for extra emissions.
The US government responded by calling the scheme "illegal."
Mr Pearson was quoted as saying: "They (the US aviation industry) just seem to be saying they don't want anything to do with the trading scheme and that they will take the EU to court if transatlantic flights are included. It is completely irresponsible."
Ryanair responded by calling itself the "greenest airline" in Europe and rejected Mr Pearson's “foolish and ill-informed” comments.
Mr O'Leary said: "Being attacked by Minister Pearson (reminds me of Denis Healey's famous quip) .... is like "being savaged by a dead sheep". It is clear that Minister Pearson hasn't a clue what he's talking about."
Ryanair's statement said that aviation was not the cause of global warming, that Mr Pearson said nothing about road transport or power stations which accounted for 43% of C02 emissions.
It also said that it has spent $10bn on fleet renewal over the past fiver years which had reduced fuel consumption by 45% and C02 emissions by 50%.
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