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To reach consumers easyJet will be taking out full-colour full-page advertising in selected national newspapers throughout the Party Conference season and passengers on easyJet aircraft will see environmental messages on the backs of aircraft seats from early October.

Entitled "Towards greener skies: the surprising truth about flying and the environment" the easyJet report seeks to put the airline's take on the science of climate change and includes a number of "little known realities about flying"; realities that environmental groups contest.

easyJet say that aviation CO2 accounts for about 1.6% of global greenhouse gases and points out that the industry has made great strides in improving the efficiency of their aircraft which are 70% cleaner than their 1960s counterparts, a development that will continue.

Compared with other forms of transport, easyJet says that air travel comes out on top claiming that easyJet passengers produce 95.7g of CO2 per kilometre, which is less than a typical family car at 160g - of course, fill a family car with a family of four you still get about 160g of CO2 per kilometre, whereas you get 382g for that same family in an aeroplane.

easyJet's beef is with the Air Passenger Duty, which the airline says does not reflect the actual emissions of the flight, being a flat rate irrespective of the aircraft or distance.  The company also contends that the money raised (some £2.4 billion) is not being linked to specific scientific research to mitigate climate change.  Furthermore, the Air Passenger Duty (APD) does not apply to freight or private jets.

easyJet is recommending the scrapping of Air Passenger Duty and replacing it with a tax based upon aircraft types and distance travelled. This would mean that, for the first time, "all UK aviation would be included and airlines would be incentivised to operate the most environmentally-efficient aircraft."

The airline say that successive Government reports have called on flying to "cover its full environmental costs". Carbon currently costs around £12 per tonne on the world markets but the UK Government estimates that the "social cost of carbon" is around £95 per tonne. Using this figure easyJet calculate that it covers its full environmental costs four times and on some routes, such as Liverpool to Belfast, 12 times.

Andy Harrison, easyJet Chief Executive, said:
"There is no doubt that climate change is a real and imminent danger which should be a concern for us all. Together we must take intelligent and well thought-out actions to ensure we leave the planet in a good shape for generations to come. As such, it is important that mechanisms are put in place to ensure the aviation industry develops in a way that is environmentally and economically sustainable and to ensure that measures for aviation are proportionate with its impact on climate change.

"However, much of the recent political debate has been characterised by gesture politics and discriminatory, often contradictory proposals and it is time for consumers to tell the politicians they won't be "green-rollered" into accepting higher air taxes for spurious green rationale.

"Politicians of all colours recognise that different cars have different emissions but do not see the same distinction within air travel. We are an island nation in a globalised economy yet the UK already taxes flying more heavily than any other European country while making high-speed rail available only to those living in the South East.

"Taxing families but not private jets is a grotesque insult. The time has come to scrap Air Passenger Duty in its current form and replace it with a "polluter tax" that has at its heart a very simple notion – those that fly on airlines that pollute less, like easyJet, should pay less.

"We should all demand a more intelligent approach to flying. Politicians must incentivise consumers to take the greener option when it is available – this means banning the dirty, old aircraft from our skies; getting the right tax regime in place to reward cleaner behaviour; being realistic about the value of aviation and resisting the temptation to advocate alternatives when no such alternatives exist."<