HOLIDAY companies this week stepped up the pressure on travellers to offset the carbon emissions of their flights, with a raft of new schemes announced at the annual conference of the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) in Marbella, Spain.

First Choice Holidays will introduce what it claims is the world’s largest carbon offset scheme run by a leisure airline from March 2007, when all customers will have the chance to pay £1 per adult (50p per child) towards the cost of offsetting the carbon emissions created by their flight.

Unlike British Airways’ existing scheme, which invites customers to “opt in” to offsetting, the First Choice scheme will be an “opt out” scheme. First Choice will match all donations pound for pound, with the company Climate Care channelling funds towards carbon-offset projects worldwide.

Dermot Blastland, managing director of First Choice’s mainstream holiday programme, said that the £1 charge would not cover a passenger’s emissions, but he said: “We believe charging a small amount will generate more money, because fewer people will opt out. It’s a start. Maybe it will rise to £1.50 per adult the following year. It’s about educating our staff and customers.”

He could not predict how much will be raised by this scheme, but said that First Choice takes 2.5 million customers on holiday each year. He added that the company currently raises about £500,000 a year through its opt-out scheme that gives 40p per adult (and 20p per child) to a tourism charity, the Travel Foundation.

Also this week, the new, all-business-class airline Silverjet announced that it will include a compulsory carbon-offset charge when it launches its service between Luton and Newark airport, New York, at the end of January. It is expected that this will be between £10 and £20pp (with return fares starting at £999), and Silverjet claims this will make it the world’s first carbon-neutral airline. Lawrence Hunt, CEO of the airline, said: “The important point is the carbon neutral offset is included as a mandatory item — that is the real difference to what others are doing.”

However, Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, who addressed the Abta conference, said the travel industry could do more to tackle climate change, such as encouraging rail travel, ending support for airport expansion in the UK and accepting the need for higher aviation fuel taxes.

First Choice is the headline sponsor of the Responsible Tourism Awards, announced last month on these pages, of which The Times is the media partner. Times Travel offsets the carbon emissions of its writers’ flights; see page 2.

Details: First Choice (www.fcenvironmentandpeople.com); Silverjet (www.flysilverjet.com).

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