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Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced that the government plans to tax flights rather than passengers in an effort to make the aviation industry more environmentally friendly

Describing the need for the sector to make a "greater contribution" to carbon emission reductions, the chancellor told the House of Commons in his pre-Budget report that he hoped the move would "encourage more efficient use of planes".

Today's announcement has met with mixed responses from airlines. A statement from Ryanair, suggesting that airlines will simply pass the extra costs on to customers, described the measure as "just another tax on ordinary passengers" and accused ministers of "swanning around on private aircraft".

By contrast easyJet chief executive Andy Harrison welcomed the development, saying the change would best combine factors including aircraft type and load capacity.

"We have long argued that the current structure of aircraft passenger duty is in need of reform. But the reform should not be used as an excuse to further increase the burden of tax on passengers - easyJet, for example, already covers its carbon costs more than four times over," he commented.

Mr Darling also outlined wider plans to limit the UK's carbon emissions, including an aim to lower VAT to five per cent for the most energy-efficient products and an extension of existing climate change agreements by ten years.

"We are already the only country to have met our Kyoto obligations - reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by almost a fifth since 1990," he said.

"Next month when the climate change bill comes before the House, we will become the first country to introduce legislation on binding carbon budgets."

However, Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said the report "falls well short of what is required to help tackle climate change".

"This was a golden opportunity for the chancellor to produce a range of green incentives to encourage people to go green. But yet again the government has not delivered," he said.