Land Rover and Birmingham International Airport last night hit out over proposals to increase taxes for air travel and "gas guzzling" cars.
The Government has also distanced itself from a report by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee which called for the transport industry to act against the increase in carbon dioxide (C02) emissions.
The report called for flights to be taxed and also recommended new Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) car tax bands, with MPs suggesting top gas guzzlers should pay as much as £1,800 a year.
The committee's chairman Tim Yeo said action was needed as transport was the only sector in the UK economy in which carbon emissions had risen consistently since 1990.
But speaking about the report yesterday, Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman suggested that air and car travellers would be spared the more draconian measures recommended in the report.
He also said he would not rule out "doing more" on vehicle taxes in the future, but he was not convinced raising rates would make people use more efficient cars.
Cars being targeted under the committee's proposals would include large family transporters and 4x4s, such as the off-roaders built at Land Rover's Solihull works.
Last year a group of Greenpeace protesters chained themselves to the production line at the firm's Lode Lane factory in an attempt to put the vehicle emissions issue at the top of agenda.
Responding to the latest calls for taxes on large cars, a spokesman for Land Rover said: "We are not aware of any official policy to alter the current system, which was only updated at the last budget.
"But we would be concerned by any measures which would unfairly distort the market."
John Morris, head of corporate and community affairs at Birmingham Airport, angrily criticised the committee's recommendations, claiming that the aviation industry accounts for just 2-3 per cent of all emissions.
He added: "These politicians are banding about generalisations which seems to make aviation a pariah, turning the industry into a scapegoat. My concern is that whatever the aviation industry says, the Great British public are being let down because the politicians are not concentrating on the true causes of emissions."
The Transport Minister said the Government was attempting to set up a trading system for airlines that would ensure they used modern efficient aeroplanes.
Mr Ladyman also dismissed an air tax hike, saying: "The people who would be affected are poorer people who wouldn't be able to take their holidays abroad any more.
"What we need, I believe, is a system which in effect taxes inefficient airlines or taxes those airlines which don't invest in the more modern aeroplanes.
"And the way to do that is through an emissions trading scheme, which is why we are trying to get Europe to agree to a new emissions trading system for aviation."
Mr Ladyman also rejected suggestions that higher taxes on "gas guzzling" cars would deter people from buying them.
He said: "Bear in mind, of course, that people who drive gas-guzzling cars are already paying for a lot of extra fuel and all that fuel carries fuel duty on it.
"So they are already incurring substantial additional costs over the more efficient cars. In many cases those costs extend to thousands of pounds and it doesn't put them off buying them."
Mr Ladyman said the Government already tried "very hard" to enforce speed limits on the roads, and was frequently criticised for measures such as speed cameras.
