Ministers will fail to meet their targets on climate change unless they combat aviation emissions and halt the expansion of airports, a new report has concluded.

In a hard-hitting study, the IPPR warned against a further expansion in the number of British runways and calls for new measures to combat pollution and noise.

Attempts to reduce the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 will be seriously undermined by the aviation industry, the authors said.

Without an unforeseen step change in technology, controlling emissions from planes would mean reducing the rate of growth in air transport and reducing the pressure for major new airport developments.

Emissions from international flights are currently excluded from any action to tackle climate change under the Kyoto protocol.

The report recommended that carbon dioxide emissions from aviation should be included in an international system of emissions trading, with a global cap on the total level of emissions.

In the medium term aviation should be included in the proposed European emissions trading regime, the report suggested.

The study also concluded that the auctioning of take-off and landing slots at airports could be used to supplement funds ear marked for public transport, including airport links and high-speed rail.

Widespread use of congestion charging on roads in the vicinity of major airports such as Heathrow, with the money raised earmarked for improving public transport links, would also assist in negating the worst effects of expansion.

And the Environment Agency should be given new powers to impose national minimum standards for the control of air pollution, suggested the report.

"Aviation emissions are only a fraction of the national total at present but fast growing. By the middle of this century, emissions from flights to and from the UK could exceed the nation's entire quota," said Tony Grayling, the study's author.

"For this reason it is vitally important for protecting human welfare and the environment that international aviation is included in future climate change commitments."

He added that measures to control emissions from aviation "will increase the cost of flying, either directly through taxes and charges or indirectly through emissions trading".

"But airfares are forecast to fall by a third in real terms over the next 30 years. The overall impact is likely to be a stabilisation of prices rather than an increase."

Campaigners against further airport expansion called on ministers to act on the findings.

Norman Mead, the chairman of Stop Stansted Expansion, said: "The IPPR report also demolishes the Department for Transport's argument that aviation is universally beneficial for the UK economy and dismisses the notion that our European competitors are stealing a march on us.

"Alistair Darling should take this to bed with him instead of his aviation cronies."