Trains should replace planes?

So says the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) in this BBC article.

Instead of encouraging airport expansion and proliferation, it is essential that the government should divert resources into encouraging a shift from air to high-speed rail for internal UK travel and some intra-European journeys.

The amount of pollution (especially CO2) from air travel is far higher per passenger-mile than rail. Britain's problem that, unlike France and Germany, we've failed to invest in a high-speed rail network, preferring patchwork upgrades to existing lines dating from the Victorian era.

The RCEP isn't taking a Luddite line that air travel is evil, only that as much short-haul traffic as possible should go by rail.

Not that this argument will cut any ice with the head-in-the-sand crowd who are still 'in denial' about global warming.