Trees: fighting global warming

Luton Airport may be the first organisation within the airline industry to take this initiative, but both British Telecom and the car firm Avis have signed up to the concept within their respective business fields.

Future Forests, the company which will carry out the tree planting for the airport, believes all air passengers should be aware of the pollution implications of aviation fuel.

Chief executive Jonathan Shopley said: "The magnitude of carbon emissions from the aviation industry is too large to plant our way out of. Trees can't save this issue.

"But if we are going to get to grips with global warming, trees are the most effective way of dealing with it."

Sceptical

Environmentalists are sceptical of the new approach, saying small local schemes to plant trees will have no impact on global warming.

Friends of the Earth say they would rather see airline passengers give up their flights and whenever possible, take the train instead.

Jeff Gazzard of the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) also questioned how effective the scheme would be.

"The trouble with offsetting carbon output is that it doesn't quite work like that," he said.

"The odd tree does not soak up your CO2. The problem is that CO2 is just one of the emissions that comes out of the back of an aircraft and it is only 30 percent of the problem."