Hello Blackpool and Skegness, goodbye Tuscany, the Seychelles, Ibiza and the Canaries. It's now official - we must stop taking cheap flights and start taking holidays in Britain, say Oxford University experts. Their comprehensive study on how aviation is speeding up climate change has concluded that we face a stark choice between cheap air travel and cutting carbon emissions.

At the rate we are going, by 2050, carbon dioxide emissions from UK aviation could be four to ten times higher than 1990 levels, representing up to two thirds of the Government's total emission target for that year. The report suggests the Goverment should reduce air travel by increasing Air Passenger Duty - a charge of between £5 and £40 per passenger that is passed on to consumers as part of the taxes and charges added to air fares - and impose VAT on domestic flights, which have been exempt until now.

Perhaps cowed by the political danger of using taxes to curb the popular appetite for low-cost flights, Gordon Brown froze APD for the fifth consecutive year in this year's Budget.

When The Oxford Times caught up with her, Dr Brenda Boardman, of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, was still fresh after 24 hours of non-stop media interviews. They included BBC Radio 4's Today programme and a phone-in on Radio 5 Live, where she faced an onslaught from listeners outraged that an Oxford don should want to increase the tax on sunshine holidays.

A typical comment, from a blog on The Times newspaper's website, was: "Instead of producing reports and facts that nobody really cares about, or will read, maybe Dr Boardman can take a proactive approach to pollution and climate change when she picks her next holiday. Instead of flying, why not swim to your favourite holiday destination, Dr Boardman?" There were also references to the "Oxford mafia" who could easily afford higher air fares, while poorer people were forced to stay at home.

Dr Boardman is happy to answer questions about her own travel. The co-authors of the report, some of whom are based at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, all used sustainable transport to meet up, for example. "Dr Carey Newson cycles to the institute from her home nearby and the others come by train. Most of our colleages don't use cars or planes," she said.

She herself is hardly a typical Oxford don, having started her working life as a secretary and taken an Open University course at the age of 30. She has since built a worldwide reputation for studying the interactions between society and technology. She was chosen to lead a major research project on how the UK can meet its target - set by Prime Minister Tony Blair in a White Paper in 2003 - of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. She believes that target is impossible to meet unless the Government rethinks its policy that air passengers can increase from about 200 million in 2003 to about 470 million in 2030.

She said: "The really good thing is that report has created a debate which is desperately needed. The Government has to confront the contradictions in its policies on aviation and on climate change. Unless the rate of growth in flights is curbed, the UK cannot meet its climate change targets."

She launched the report, called Predict and Decide, at the House of Lords to an invited audience of MPs, aviation industry representatives, policymakers and tourism industry representatives. It brings together, for the first time, a range of forecasts of future aviation emissions and shows that, even when all realistic options for improvements in technology and air traffic management are considered, climate change targets can not be met without controlling demand.

The environmental damage from cars pales in comparison with air travel. Carbon dioxide emissions from aviation have doubled between 1990 and 2000, while emissions from other sectors reduced by nine per cent. Other sectors will not be able to cut their emissions sufficiently to compensate for the growth in aviation's impact, says the report.

Leaving aside the second-home owners in Tuscany, what about the large numbers of immigrants who rely on air travel to visit family?

She shows me a graph of 'reasons for travel'. Leisure is clearly the main offender, with a graph shooting off the top of the page, while 'business' and 'visiting friends and relations' are relatively static. The report also points out that the vast majority of flights are made by the better-off - three out of every four leisure passengers at major UK airports are from the top three socio-economic groups and recent growth has come from existing passengers travelling more often.

The cost of leisure and business flights has fallen in real terms over the past 15 years, causing at least 40 per cent of the growth. Increasing ticket prices by 10 per cent, by raising air passenger duty, could reduce demand by 5-15 per cent, the report says. At the moment, the Government favours a different approach - including aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. But according to the report this would be too slow to halt climate change.

When I ask about Virgin boss Richard Branson's decision to commit £3bn to researching 'green' technology to reduce the carbon emissions of air travel, Dr Boardman carefully corrects my tenses.

"It's all in the future, he has said he will do it - it hasn't happened yet. But it is an extremely welcome development and the more that the aviation industry can do to become more efficient and use cleaner fuels, the better. But at the moment all the forecasts show that emissions will increase massively in the mean time, even if efficiency improves."

How about using carbon offsetting - paying an organisation to plant trees or fund an environmentally beneficial programme to 'offset' the damage that we do by flying?

"Carbon offsets are the least worst option," she said. "If we are going to fly, offsetting is at least a contribution to limiting the damage. But people have to recognise that fewer flights are the only answer. They have to consider whether they could fly a shorter distance. If you are a businessperson, could you have a video-conference or conference call instead of flying? It takes a lot less time."

She added: "Cllimate change is the big issue of our time and it is going to affect every aspect of our lives. We have been too profligate for years, overusing fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - and we now have to recognise that we have to produce less carbon. That's going to take some adjustment, and sometimes that's quite pleasant. It's actually quite nice to walk to work or cycle or take the bus, and it's healthier. We have already demonstrated that we are concerned about food miles and people are seeking out locally produced food rather than food that has been flown in."

Perhaps curbing our appetite for low-cost flights will be harder, I suggest.

"We have got into the habit of making quite a lot of non-essential flights - hen parties in Dublin, shopping in Milan or a weekend in New York. You cannot really say that these are essential when you consider the damage we are doing."

How about the damage to economies that have been boosted by cheap flights, from Bulgaria to the Maldives?

She said: "At the moment, every Briton who goes abroad spends £2.32 for every pound spent by a foreigner in Britain. We have a £17bn tourism deficit. A lot of our money what we create in this country and that we earn in this country we are spending abroad. It might be quite good for our own economy to spend it here."

Dr Boardman quotes a Mori opinion poll showing that a majority now favour airlines paying higher taxes to reflect environmental damage, even if this means higher airfares. But while she is pleased to have sparked a debate, she seems a little unnerved by the anger unleashed at any threat to cheap holidays abroad. As for the bloggers, she said: "I don't think I'm going to read them."