Green Party proposes ban on adverts for flights and polluting cars

Adverts for flights and petrol or diesel cars would be banned across the UK, under Green Party plans to tackle climate change.

The party said the move would use the same powers that enabled Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to ban junk food adverts on the London Underground.

The proposal has been unveiled ahead of the party’s autumn conference in Newport, Wales, which will set out environmental protection under a Green New Deal to provide green jobs, better land use and more public transport.

Deputy leader Amelia Womack said: “Excessive flying harms our health just like smoking, and advertising only increases this harm.

“The climate emergency will cause 250,000 additional deaths a year from 2030, comparable in number to deaths caused by smoking.”

Green Party finance spokesperson and MEP Molly Scott Cato said there was a need to discourage “binge flying” because of the climate emergency.

“Flying from London to New York and back generates a comparable level of emissions as heating a home for a year, and because these gasses are released at high altitudes, the impact on the atmosphere is considerable,” she said.

She added that flying was one of the fastest growing sources of carbon emissions, already creating 2% of global emissions, and that the number of flights could increase by 300% by 2050.

“We need to stop cooking the planet,” she said.