Thousands of people die every year due to air pollution. The European Commission is finally forcing the UK government to tackle the issue. As a first step, the UK must publish a strategy outlining how it will deal with the crisis.
The strategy should have been published two years ago, but the government has dodged and delayed, presumably because it knows that the strategies in the policy will not be popular with drivers. The most recent delay saw the government claiming that purdah rules now applied to the strategy, due to the upcoming general election.
However, the High Court has stepped in and ordered the government to publish its draft strategy by 9 May, with the full strategy published by 31 July.
Why is tackling air pollution so controversial?
The government seems afraid of the air pollution strategy’s potential impact on votes. However, the High Court judge, Mr Justice Garnham, was clear that,
“The continued failure of the government to comply with directives and regulations constitutes a significant threat to public health.”
So why is the government so worried? Without having seen the draft strategy, we can of course only speculate, but it seems likely that the policy will contain controversial and unpopular measures to cut air pollution.
What we think will be in the pollution plan
We expect the pollution plan to include policies such as clean air zones, which will see motorists who drive heavy polluting vehicles facing city centre access charges. The idea is that the charges will dissuade them from driving into city centres where pollution levels are high. This is likely to apply to several major cities, including Manchester, Southampton and Leeds (amongst others). This measure is likely to be unpopular with small businesses, construction firms and HGV operators, who will see their transport costs increase. This could then be passed on to consumers as higher prices.
These concerns have led to the Freight Transport Association to call for a longer timescale for these changes to be introduced. That would give small businesses time to adapt, as well as time for a market for compliant second hand vehicles to emerge.
In addition to this, there may be incentives such as price and tax subsidies for using public transport and purchasing electric vehicles . We also think it’s highly likely that the government will introduce a diesel scrappage scheme.
Not so long ago, the government told drivers to buy diesel. Thus it’s hardly surprising that the administration that prioritises removing diesels from the nation’s roads will face backlash from drivers. However, the government has reassured motorists that it will help, with recent reports suggesting that the scheme will include paying owners up to £2,000 to scrap older, heavier-polluting vehicles from the most polluted UK cities. The government is yet to confirm any final details.
Such schemes cost money and revenue of this nature is likely to come from drivers themselves. The 2015 Conservative Manifesto pledge not to increase any taxes looks set to be dropped entirely thanks to the snap election. An increase in vehicle excise duty for diesel vehicles and the expansion of charges for diesels to enter city centres across the UK are both distinct possibilities. Neither will go down well with the UK’s 12 million or so diesel drivers.
An unpopular move
There is no avoiding the fact that these policies will be expensive to run. The Guardian reports that for London alone the measures could cost more than £500m.
What makes the situation so difficult to swallow for many diesel drivers is that just ten years ago the government was actively encouraging people to buy diesels. Government policy encouraged the purchase of diesel cars by offering cheaper road tax due to their lower carbon dioxide emissions, which led to the number of diesels on Britain’s roads more than doubling.
Now, those same drivers look set to pay for a system under which they will have to scrap their vehicles and replace them with more environmentally friendly ones. Such an unpopular move could well cost the government votes at exactly the time that it is trying to increase its power.
EDIT: Since publishing this article on Wednesday, the draft plan has come out on Friday and as we predicted it’s been massively watered down. Client Earth has labelled it “woefully inadequate” and “passing the buck to local authorities” in other words a complete avoidance of the main issues causing pollution because a General Election is about to happen. The Government’s draft plan is so poor, they may face more court action because of its inadequacy.
What are your views on pollution targets? Do you think that the health benefits of increasing air quality are worth higher taxes, and policies that pull the heaviest-polluting vehicles off the roads? Let us know in the comments below.
We need to do something about the pollution but this includes older petrol engines as well as diesels. A Euro 6 diesel should be less polluting than a 16 year old petrol, both in terms of NOX and CO2. There is a tendency to label this as only a diesel problem but this is only the part of the problem latched onto by the newspapers. Researchers are also starting to find some problems with lead replacement petrols. We need to base the pollution plan on the full science not over simplistic headlines.
I agree with you on all your points.
My 1970’s 3 litre classic car will no doubt produce more pollutants than my daily driver (a 2009 2.0L diesel).
I personally find issues with the new petrols, and so do many other owners of classic cars.
The ethanol in the fuel is dissolving the rubber fuel lines and fuel pump seals as they weren’t made to withstand the ethanol content.
The other issue is that the ethanol can draw water into the fuel because of the ethanol, this gives it a much shorter shelf life, anyone leaving a car laid up over winter is ‘supposed’ to drain the fuel and replace it due to the short life of ethanol based fuels.
I agree. If it is your daly drive you should have no problem with Petrol these days. And if you get a 2nd hand car from say 2014, these were already for the ethanol content.
The major problems with Diesel are mainly related to driving and maintenance. A well maintained Diesel (as well as a Petrol one) will keep emissions tighter and closer to a lower value. Having air filter replaced when they should reduces consumption and ergo, pollution.
The other reason is that Diesel drivers just turn the ignition and drive like there is no tomorrow. Every engine needs to warm up to reach peak efficiency. Diesels are particularly sensitive to this, and if you drive them harshly while cold they just spit loads of smoke from the back. Furthermore as the engine is cold combustion is not as complete as it should, the quantity of the invisible particulate shoots up.
I’ve seen too many Diesels that look like coal burners.
Gustavo, leaving an engine (any engine, petrol OR diesel) to “warm up” is one of the worst things you can do. Modern engines are so efficient that they generate very little waste heat when idling (especially diesels). All you do is waste fuel and prevent the emissions control equipment from reaching its working temperature sooner. The current technical advice is to just start your car and drive it. You don’t have to drive it hard or fast, you just need to gt it doing some useful work.
The ethanol in petrol is at the moment just a few per cent but may be raised to 10 percent for environmental purposes. I have read that this rise in content could affect cars built before 2002 and some models built as late as 2009. Repairs and modifications could thus put many older cars off the road.
I couldn’t agree more Paul. Unfortunately in these days of dumbed-down “sound bites”, they can only seem to be able to burn one witch at a time! Give it another 10 years when we’re all back in petrol cars and what’s the betting CO2 will be “Public Enemy No. 1” again?!
IF diesels are so bad…. WHY hasn’t the sale of NEW diesel CARS been banned?????
It’s ok saying we’ll give a bonus for trading in… but why are dozens of diesel models still being made and sold?
IF the government truly wants to get rid of diesels, surely the FIRST thing to do is remove the supply.
BUT lets not forget that SOME large models and MOST vans are ONLY available as diesel and should NOT BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST.
and PLEASE respect that many DISABLED transports are diesel simply because they only come with diesel engines and DISABLED ACCESS tends to be ONLY on larger (therefore diesel) vehicles
I feel especially sorry for the residents of Southampton; it seems that whatever they do it will not affect their air quality as most of it is caused by the large ships that come into and go from their docks. I also suspect this sort of traffic affects some other large cities.
Why does the council keep closing Bus stop bays, wouldn’t “force” traffic congestion create more pollution? shouldn’t the Government?Councils be more creative with the Traffic Management?
Electric cars are in most car company’s plans for the next couple of decades so local emissions will naturally tend to drop with no need for the government to ‘do something’. The congestion charges will give some instant gratification, of course, but given that the health issues we are talking about here are not exactly urgent and better than they were in the past anyway, I’m not sure it is worth the hardship this will cause to less well off working people. Not to mention that it is unlikely that the charges will ever go away once they’re put in place, and no doubt will eventually be widened in scope to include low emissions vehicles too for whatever fashionable reason of the day can be invented, ‘cos that’s just how tax works.
The sum of £2,000.00 was the figure that was used for the previous Scrappage Scheme scam that resulted in thousands of motorist being ‘Royally Had” and rushing to purchase diesel powered vehicle/cars in preference to Petrol Powered ones – THE REST IS HISTORY
Instead of imposing ludicrous fines that will simply disappear into the Treasury Coffers – why don’t they just simply ban the vehicles using ANPR cameras by confiscating them once the image and other relevant details are checked and established like those that are used in many car parks up and down the country.
This could be a real deterrent against those drivers simply sneaking into a NO GO ZONE and chancing it with the much depleted numbers of police/traffic officers and to some extent the traffic wardens that hound otherwise legitimate drivers could even be retrained to observe,photograph and report the offenders/offending vehicles.
It is time that a celebrity Cash Cow Motorist with substantial monies behind him/they stood up to this and other governments and initiated a Lawsuit against it for total incompetence in dealing with the related issues and gross negligence when it comes to verification of the facts that have lead to so many of us being Royally Screwed in the matters of Scrappage and fuel related issues.
Just a pro tip. Read what you write. If you want to be taken seriously do not leave your text littered with spelling errors.
If Germany takes measures that later on are proven to effectively reduce pollution why shoudn’t we follow a good example?! When did Britain actually take credit for any measures the thought of?! Yeah… That’s right… ZERO.
Could the European Commission is finally forcing the UK government to tackle the issue. As a first step as a last ditch attempt to continue controlling things in this country. Notice how much they are dumpingon us since our PM said “On yer Bikes” to the EU.
They have expected us to doff our caps at all the rules and regulation they nhave slung at the UK, some being totally stupid (bent cucumbers for 1) and upto have won out with totall compliance by the consecutive governments.
Enough is enough I say. The pollution was caused by a former PM and his government cronnies persuading the people that it was better to buy diersal the petrol. Nowwe are being told that this is 110% wrong, and now the brainwashing iof the people starts to alienate thiose who did their best for the planet by buying diesal ( I was 1, But i still dont believe what they are saying)
AllI can say is EU BUTT OUT of soon to be seperated from you bunch of control freaks.
Some one once said tome that the whole idea of a single european state was Adolph Hitlers idea and at the time the person said watch how Germany gets it self in a position of power.
Now all these so called stupid ideas have come true.
That is why the EUand it’s german controllers are throwing som many woblers and threats out and if the UK Government agree with anything they say and start punishing the people who believed the governemnt of D.Cameron about this, Then they just might find they will have a motorist revolt on their hands which will cost MPs jobs.
Wrong, on SO many levels Steve!
1. WE were part of the EU negotiations that AGREED the air quality limits.
2. It’s not the European Commission that is forcing this, it is our very own environmental pressure groups. (You’ll soon not be able to blame “the EU” for everything that goes wrong, however, so you’d best start looking for someone else to blame)!
3. This has been going on for YEARS – long before any inkling of a Brexit vote. Nothing extra has been “dumped on us since the vote. We’ve just sat on our fat, union-jacked backsides and not done anything about it.
4. So you’re trying to blame “the EU” one minute and then saying it was our own previous governments telling us to buy diesels? Make your mind up!
Yet another knee jerk reaction by a UK government in response to the EU dictators lead by German politicians( 2 world wars,didn’t win either, but making sure that that they keep All Europe in line-the French follow like sheep).Will other EU nations put such restrictions on their people!! NO.
Its about time that we British stood up to the EU/our government,insisting that ordinary folk are fed of being screwed by politicians.(remember the pole tax revolution?). Transport organisations should refuse to deliver goods
Into cities where popollution charges apply.
Government should be working with manufactures to bring in hybrid vehicles on stream, few of the current generation are capable of pulling a decent load for a sustained distance.
“Will other EU nations put such restrictions on their people!! NO.”
“YES”, actually.
Germany has a system of coloured stickers indicating how polluting the vehicle is. If your sticker isn’t the right colour you can’t drive into town. Eighty-two towns have restrictions. France has a similar system, but just in two towns so far. Austria has a similar system but only for commercial vehicles so far.
The EU is applying the same standards everywhere. Germany took decisive action on traffic pollution in towns years ago. Ken Livingstone had prepared a scheme for London when he was mayor, but Boris cancelled it. Now we’re going to have to scramble to catch up. Nobody’s fault but ours.
Seriously?! You need to catch up. So does Britain. Let’s not even discuss the implications of you thinking that only the UK is placing restrictions.
To give you an example, Athens has forbidden all Diesel cars except for comercial ones or buses.
Hi, Surely the commercial vehicles are the ones that need to be banned as they are more likely to be polluting Athens. It has been a long while since I was there but I seem to remember Black sooty smoke belching from the buses and lorries more than from cars?
Sorry but you’re blaming the wrong organisation, Tim. You’ve got our very own “Client Earth” or “Transport and the Environment” pressure groups to thank for this! WE were part of the group that agreed the air quality limits for the EU. (Obviously, we’re leaving now, so we’ve just lost any say we might have had in any future limits). The fact that (as plenty of people have pointed out to you already) other countries were proactive and got to grips with the problem whil the UK tried to pretend it wasn’t there, isn’t “the EU’s fault” either!
Still, free from the “tyranny” of the EU, we’ll be able to vote for air quality like Beijing or Delhi if we want!
I agree with Michael Gane, these modern fuels have a much shorter shelf life, I used to find it with my classic car. The thing about diesel is they always had a lot more diesel vehicles on the Continent than we ever had, so is the pollution just as bad and why is it only the private motorist, how about the trucks and vans delivering our goods?. Yes, there are some things going on for local journeys but you still need diesel to power your 44 tonne truck from Inverness to Penzance. Another thing about the pollution is something I have not heard mentioned, the pollution inside an electric car. We all know mobile phones can cause cancer with them so close to your head and WI-FI going through your body is not good for you, so if you have all that electricity flowing around and through your body in an electric car, what is this doing to you?.
Yes, I drive a newish diesel car, probably will be exempt from any penalties for a while as it is Euro 6 compliant. However sooner or later time and age will catch up and I will be hit with a tax bill.
What the politicians and to a greater extent the quasi scientists and bureaucrats are missing is that Benzene is a much nastier chemical than is found in diesel, so why are they not banned from our roads?
If and it is a big if, electric vehicles had a sensible range, then I would buy one, simples! However the range of 5 miles on battery from some hybrids and maybe 80-100 mile in true electric only cars (Tesla excepted), is for most people a non starter, flat battery?
My very bad for the environment 70+ to the gallon Peugeot 508SW had a range of over 1000 miles to a full tank, non stop motoring to Budapest possible. How many stops in even a Tesla? 4-5? even allowing for free charging, and scarce points across Europe, hotel stays would add £300 to a journey that only costs around £140 in diesel fuel. Bargain!!
Even in my newer and smaller tanked Renault, I would only need to fill up after I reached Austria, where diesel is only around £1 a litre. So is electric viable for me?, No.
Politicians, scientists and bureaucrats wake up to reality, until electric cars have a sensible range Joe public relies on economical diesel cars for their everyday transport. Give us a break, we will be out of the EU soon and not have to comply with the rules. Yes the health issue does not go away, but Benzene is highly toxic are they forgetting that?
Why is this country not promoting LPG? Many other European countries have LPG at the majority of service stations – Uk it is a real rarity.
We need to understand that as always government will do as little as possible. The truth is that motorists are soft target without any particular or strong lobying group. The reality about polution is that in UK overall ( not the city centers) transportation (including trains, public buses, cabs and depening on report even planes or ships) cuntributes ~14% of overall polution. Government doesn’t want people to have full picture, hence we only see reports from sensors maybe fitted on the pavement next to busy road. The truth is that as far as transportation goes it is minor issue even home heating produces 16%, power generation is at healthy 20% (yes electric cars…going to boost that) and no mater how little industry we have left it never was at >40%. But all tose other contributors are much better represented that drivers. Finally, it is always assumed that 14% are those individual motorist… far from truth – majority comes from public transport and HGVs, personal vehicles only contributes 2.4% of which 2.1% are diesels, 0.3% petrol and hybrids. I am personally driving petrol car but that doesn’t stop people protraying me as gas guzler polluter… and government continuosly threthening to charge me extra punitive taxes… I have long lost hope of any reasonable decisions from government.
Yes it is always the easy target they aim for -private cars. Just look at the fumes and pong spewed out by older buses. With the vast increase in on line shopping – groceries plus everything else white vans and supermarket vans on the roads have increased dramatically. With the pressure on couriers – usually with drivers fro Eastern Europe driving old white vans spewing out clouds of fumes – yet no word of a VAN scrappage scheme.
Another big offender which has not been mentioned is trains. Next to our local Morrison’s supermarket is a railway maintenance depot and the equipment there is kept running on idle constantly. Many diesel trains particularly in the north of England are old ones and they put out massive amounts of pollution compared to cars.
Why no scrappage scheme for those? Older freight train locos also are bad.
Its all very well to encourage people to use public transport but with bus fares to high in many areas and so many clapped out buses still running government policy to target just diesel car owners is totally misguided.
Mr brow did a lot of damage to the country, reducing the RFL on diesel was a big one.
Diesel has always been ,is and will be a dirty engine. Back in 2003 talking to a japanese, I was told diesel engines were not allowed in tokyo.
I have no sympathy for the cry wolve crowd. Nobody force anybody to buy diesel engine cars. Most if not all who did so to take advantage of much cheaper RFL and nothing more. So please just accept it & no more winging and potentially wasting tax payer’s money which will be better spent treating the health issues diesel drivers created!
incidently I have noticed large commercial vehicles belch out A lot less dirt and smoke compared to passenger vehicle and the white vans. They also do not emit so much suffocating invisible fumes
I find it hard to understand all this noise about not using diesel. The majority of fossil fuel undergoes a process called fractional distillation, which I understood from school chemistry lessons ( taken when I was a child of 14) turns one cubic metre of crude oil into ( in order of volatility and lightness) so many litres of bitumen, so many litres of fuel oil, so many litres of diesel, so many litres of kerosine, so many litres of naptha, so many litres of petrol and finally , so many litres of LPG. So it follows that if you produce petrol, you produce all of those other byproducts, not out of choice but by virtue of the fact that not to would be simply wasteful. Now we are being told that diesel is the devil ( which it may well be) but we aren’t being told where they propose to use the surplus of diesel which will result in lower diesel usage. I suspect that we are only being told half the story. I am a little ticked off that the politicians are treating their voters like they have a mental capacity and general knowledge and experience of less than a 14 year old. Spin seems to be pushing the limits of credibility. My belief is that they will use the surplus diesel in power stations because it is likely that they can burn it more efficiently in power stations in order to turn it into electricity to power transport.I don’t understand why the spin doctors aren’t explaining the whole story. All we seem to get is “diesel is the devil- worse than drunk driving whilst under the influence of illegal drugs and all diesel users will pay the cost”. The overall cost of phasing out diesel will not be outrageously high it the politicians get their way. The little man will pay whilst the government already electrified most of the railways and they shall be able to operate on lower cost electricity generated from burning off surplus diesel. Do we see any move towards the introduction of trolley bus style lorries? Any development of hybrid or fuel cell powered lorries? Will the only recipients of goods be those who live close to one of the remaining ancient railways? Rant over.
If as is suggested Diesel will be used to generate Electricity, those emissions will still enter the atmosphere, just in a different place. This may be an acceptable compromise for a time, but sometime in the future it could well come back to haunt us.
Re the refining of fuels, there is a process named Fischer-Tropsh see wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process that has been around for a long time, but is starting to be used more now, where in simple terms, oil or gas is split at a molecular level and recombined with a different hydrocarbon structure. This can be used to produce different fuels, so refining less diesel will not be wasteful as the process can be optimised for production of different ranges of fuels. It is a lot more complicated than this but the point is using less diesel should not create more waste.
the problem is concentration levels and in zone 1 in london it really is serious –
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-2/#our proposals
see the map under “Concentrations of annual average NO2 in 2013 (Source: LAEI 2013)”.
At least elsewhere it’s under the set limit (which might be too high anyway).
So if it does occur elsewhere , that would be no bad thing.
Is it not just typical of the Conservatives to try to ignore a looming crisis for as long as they can hoping that it will miraculously disappear whilst their backs are turned and then when it doesn’t grasp in panic at the nearest short term solution to the problem e.g. Fracking for gas at the risk of the environment, because they have ignored the fact that our old power stations are at the end of life and they have no cohesive plan to replace them. So really I am not surprised that yet again the government are caught on the back foot looking for another scapegoat to pass the blame and the cost on to.
I feel sorry for the people that run an old diesel car because they cant afford to run anything else and need transport for work but not the green wellie brigade that run large 4 track status symbols that never ever see the countryside let alone off road, most bought to do the school run every morning and afternoon.
I for one never believed that a vehicle that belched black smoke from it’s exhaust could be cleaner that one that did not, and I am sure that a lot of people that bought them just because of their cheaper running cost did either.
What are the Government and Client Earth , calling , and I quote “older polluting diesel cars” ? Be ready to be stung by a clueless government !
Why have hydrogen engines not been developed and brought into production? cheap clean fuel that can be the answer to a lot of problems. The big oil companies running most governments’ in the western world don’t want them as they would soon go out of business. The government doesn’t want them because the Hydrogen can easily be produced in a garage so avoiding taxes. does Bio diesel spew out the same pollutants as diesel produced from crude? I am just about to change our car, I will be going diesel again as it won’t be brand new but a year or two old and at the moment cheaper to run, i’ll take my chances!
Hydrogen is spectacularly difficult to obtain. It’s plentiful, but you need a HUGE amount of energy to get it on its own. Even once you’ve got it, hydrogen is such a light gas, that you need to store it under immense pressures to get enough of it to give a decent range. I’d like to see it more widely used (and maybe we can use some off-peak, surplus windmill and tidal barrage electricity to get the hydrogen), but for the time being, we’re just not able to do it.
I HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE! TAKE A LOOK AT AN AVIATION RADAR MAP AND YOU WILL SEE THAT SOUTHERN ENGLAND HAS MORE AIRFIELDS AND AIRPORTS PER SQUARE MILE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN EUROPE. THIS TOGETHER WITH THE MASSIVE OVERHEAD PASSAGE OF AIRCRAFT FROM EVERY DIRECTION MEANS MASSIVE POLLUTION ACROSS ALL OF THIS AREA. THERE CAN BE AS MANY AS 100 AIRCRAFT IN THE SKY OVER LONDON AND THE HOME COUNTIES AT PEAK PERIODS ALL THROWING OUT PARTICULATES GENERALLY COLLECTING WATER VAPOUR AS THEY EMITTED WHICH ANY ONE CAN SEE ON CLOUDLESS DAYS UP HIGH. IN ADDITION LONDON IS UNDER THE FLIGHT PATH FOR SO MANY UK AND OVERSEAS AIRPORTS, R.A.F. STATIONS AND SMALL AIRFIELDS. WHERE DOES THIS POLLUTION GO? DON’T GET ME WRONG, I AM AN AVIATION ENTHUSIAST BUT AS A DRIVER OF A DIESEL CAR I CANNOT HELP BEING VICTIMISED FOR FOLLOWING GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGEMENT WHEN i BOUGHT MY CAR.
It’s not just drills that this government has in the shale sands, it’s their heads. They knew 20 plus years ago that drastic measures were needed about fossil fuels. They should have been on top of it by now. Making it a party political issue means that the powerful oil lobby has dictated progress. The diesel pollution response needs to be a Westminster one, drafted by all parties, something Westminster struggles with due to the first past the post electoral system, which makes for a roll a coaster ride on difficult policies for the long term. The longer they leave it the more chaotic the eventual solution will be. Meanwhile people are dying, with the young and elderly hardest hit. Diesels must go, starting with the killing fields, the big cities.
This is NOT being forced on us by the European Commission, it is being forced upo us by our own environmental action groups. All the Commission did (and WE were part of it!) was to set agreed limits for air quality. The fact that we didn’t bother doing anything about it for many years, isn’t actually the Commission’s fault!
Let’s not forget the environmental ADVANTAGES of diesel, in all this. Plenty of people seem to be saying the government “got it wrong” in trying to reduce CO2 emissions and incentivising diesels. That’s not actually true! Conserving fossil fuel stocks and reducing CO2 emissions are still both GOOD things to do for the environment.
What happened was that politicians seem incapable of concenrtating on more than one pollutant at a time, so in their drive to reduce CO2, they took their eye off the ball on oxides of nitrogen and particulates.
actually Ian they didn’t take their eye off the ball wrt other emissions.
the manufacturers promised technologies to deal with NOx and particulates but then dropped all measures that couldn’t be “topped up in a service”. The catalyst for this was the financial crisis.
Now they will drag their feet as the govt encouraging fleet renewal will bring sales forwards for them.
The EU “says we must comply” .Why doesn’t parliament tell them to get knotted we are leaving the meddling Eurocrats in 2 years so what business is it of theirs. Just another case of Brussels interference.
You mean Strasbourg don’t you. You’re welcome…
And perhaps the reason is because bad air quality kills people & the environment. How dare the “meddling Eurocrats” try and force our hateful government to save lives.
You must long for the day when the government can kill us all in our sleep without being told not to by “meddling Eurocrats”.
Plonker.
1, Charge VW £2billion fine due to their deliberate fraud in selling into the U.K. 1,100,000 illegally altered polluting vehicles in their group of manufacturers i.e. VW ,Audi ,Seat ,Skoda.
The monies should then be used by our government to increase the checks in our MOT system to include assessing that a vehicle has been serviced yearly to include
1 oil changes
2 air filter and fuel filters
3 spark plugs
4 brakes to have been serviced so as not to cause drag.
These measures could cut emmissions by 10%+ due to many vehicle owner s not having any servicing done only to chance an mot with fingers crossed.
An immediate gain in everyone’s health .
Thought then can be given to diesels etc at a more realistic time table over some years.
Gordon Brown and political party boffins didn’t look at the full picture of the diesel engines. And now the Vw group have sold cars with their emissions scandal that are damaging our health, THANKS GERMANY now you are strangling us, STOP NOW and pay the customers you’ve cheated, our we will never buy your vehicles again.
Come on England let’s go and build a new engine for the WORLD we’re not going to be beaten, but we need the boffins to show us their work and with Government backing.
actually under labour diesel tax was increased more than petrol tax.
The issue came when road tax became carbon based as the public demanded climate change measures, and petrol is a much bigger CO2 issue than diesel.
The problem with diesel non-CO2 emissions has come about because manufacturers dropped their promise to introduce technologies to deal with those (precipitated by the financial crisis). Basically anything that couldn’t be “topped up in a service” was dropped and so we now have the emissions issue due to the volume of cars.
NOx and particulates could be dealt with by the manufacturers as they promised they would be, but it’s not in their interest if govt is instead going to encourage fleet renewal measures. ie purchases brought forwards.
1. Although we don’t yet know the format of possible/probable scrappage scheme, it is quite likely to apply only to buyers of NEW cars. This possibility would be grossly unfair to less well off and possibly older drivers or even those more economically minded who recognise the massive drop in value of any new car even soon after it is driven out of the showroom. I have been retired for some years now and I run a 15 year old Peugeot 306 hdi. It has now covered about 134,000 miles and has never failed an MOT. I have for sometime been considering buying a hybrid (Toyota or Honda) but I would certainly not buy a new one. So the only fair scrappage would be to make a reasonable cash payment, realistically (*) based on the value of the car [* not the valuation of an online buying site], the diesel car scrapper could then use the cash to buy whatever was fancied, hybrid or otherwise, new or used. He/she could even just use the cash to help his use of public transport.
2. I understand one contributor’s comments about limited range of electric vehicles but the ongoing development of such vehicles is very important to the move to a decent, healthy environment. That, plus another comment about surplus diesel being used for power generation should remind us that electric and hybrid vehicles will only be fully appreciated when ALL electrical power is generated from natural renewable sources. It is however important for development to continue before that time in the hope that when 100% renewable is achieved acceptable ranges will be achievable.
Why dont we use more lpg vehicles,theres very little co2 emisions.Birmingham make all taxis use lpg/autogas so why cant all city,s do the same
It is estimated that ‘lead particulates’ derived from diesel engines are killing/injuring up to 40,000 people a year. The pollution created by diesel engines is particularly dangerous to young children living near main roads in urban conurbations. Whilst the proposals being put forward by the government to address this issue may be unpalatable to diesel drivers (including myself).
However, ‘BREXITEERS’ ALLEGE THIS TO BE AN EXAMPLE OF YET MORE EU INTERFERENCE AND THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD IGNORE THE EU BECAUSE WE ARE LEAVING. CLEARLY ‘BREXITEERS’ ARE SO SELFISHLY IGNORANT THAT THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY PREPARED TO RISK THE LIVES OF BRITISH KIDS TO SATISFY THERE XENOPHOBIA OF ANYTHING EUROPEAN.
One must challenge the statistical claims driving the environmental agenda & instead ask how many actual deaths have pollution recorded on the death certificate as the cause or a contributory cause of death? This would be hard medical evidence, as opposed to statistical estimates based on assumptions.
Like it or not this is the consequence of yet another EU directive created by unelected bureaucrats & then presented to the European Parliament for approval. The trouble with being governed by bureacrats is that it is their job to interfere in the minutiae of all our lives but with every interference comes side effects, such as throwing dead fish back in the sea because they exceed some EU quota. Big government trying to control everything will always produce perverse consequences but anyway it should be an elected government implementing manifesto pledges that decides our laws & not nameless unelected bureaucrats.
Since when has CO2 been a pollutant and how many catastrophic events can we 100% link to man’s influence on the climate? I think we may have been brainwashed by Al Gore, the IPCC and the politicians into believing their cultish mantra on supposedly harmful carbon emissions. Perhaps if we put the same effort and resources into combating real environmental issues such as diesel particulate pollution, we drivers would not be in such a mess on this issue right now. Perhaps the Green lunatics who influenced the politicians, who then in turn compelled us to buy diesel should get out their cheque books!!
Here we go again, yet another hit the people with the cheap vehicles and remove them from the road. Isn’t it enough to make us pay over the odds for fuel and Insurance not to mention VED . I am disabled I do not claim enough to pay for a motability vehicle, so I pay for the vehicles myself. The limited use I do have, all trips are for a purpose and no alternative public transport is available. The Tories cut the afternoon bus. So you must have a vehicle in rural areas. Also getting to any form of entertainment requires a vehicle. Today the trouble is servicing or the lack of it, I find many newer vehicles have thick black smoke coming from them. Our 1998 Range Rover diesel now does 34mpg, its petrol version only gets 9mpg. Now how is it right to say a diesel pollutes more, I use less fuel, service the vehicle and attend to its needs. While others do not. The petrol car 2000 1.3 is the lifeboat, as over the years the RR has been subject to electrical problems. I bought the petrol car, looking forward to the possibility of being back stabbed by us leaving the EU. We will need a stronger PM to tell them to stuff it. Perhaps they should start another European war, we lose and end up the winners.Just about had enough of it all. They talk of freedom, yet refuse it. Could we all dump our vehicles at the gates of downing street ? Places like London are too full of people, the Bus you show is going to Brixton, so whats wrong with the underground ? only a few stops. Take that off London’s streets. No it is a private concern now and not London Transport as a whole. How many other routes are duplicated or with a minor change able to carry more people by picking up along their route ? I’m available for Mayor and I have two black and white cats.
How did they arrive at so-called pollution targets in the first place? These are arbitrary figures, with no scientific basis.
“Air quality environmental epidemiology studies are unreliable”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230017300673
“New study debunks key EPA PM2.5 study”
http://junkscience.com/2017/04/new-study-debunks-key-epa-pm2-5-study/
The ridiculous “40,000 premature deaths” is repeated as a mantra, but is unsupportable, as are the claims regarding asthma.
Air quality is better than it has been for centuries, woodburning stoves produce more problems than diesel cars, but this is yet another excursion into the bottomless pit of public money wasted on flawed enivronmental claims.
ClientEarth is an activist group set up by people from longstanding NGO’s such as the US Natural Resources Defense Council. They have considerable funding and are part of the international campaign against the use of fossil fuels in the West.
https://www.clientearth.org/people/
Additional. I lived in a basement flat in London. In the Summer we were forced to keep windows closed. During the late 60’s then into the 80’s things improved a lot. I think the fuel is key to the whole matter of Diesels. Without going into the chemical reaction on here. The fuel companies have altered fuel over the years. Unleaded has been a big improvement with problems for classic petrol car users. Most old cars hold a “lead memory” that is unless completely rebuilt they still have a limited amount of lead in their materials. As for Diesels they can burn all sorts of fuel, they are a compression ignition engine. They rely upon heat built up from the friction within the cylinder to burn a fuel. I am sure that we could devise a fuel suitable and more safer than Petrol, but we are still using less fuel. LPG : the first John O groats to Lands end semi lorry run was done using a lorry using just LPG. I heard a radio show on Radio 4 and electric lorries were talked about. The big problem is weight, all firms need to carry the most weight to offset the cost of the vehicle per mile travelled. So we are stuck with fossil fuel. Also when all the cars, vans and other vehicles are electric, how do we charge their batteries ? Remove the yellow lines and plug into a lampost ? I might consider that.
Since about 1978 when I saw the film at primary school, there is a technology that enables a car/truck/bus to run on pure water. Water in, and post hydrogen burning, water out. No need for highly flammable hydrogen tanks or petrol etc.
It’s simple, cheap , poilution free and liberating.
Because it’s liberating and doesn’t raise billions in oil revenue and tax revenue, we will be having this stupid dilemma for many years to come.
Do you really think that we would be here now of the government (of whatever colour) really gave a monkey’s arse about helping it’s people?
Just think how much money sloshing around for stupid foreign wars etc. Could be diverted into developing the roll out of this technology to EXISTiNG vehicles of all types. No scrappage needed. No more pollution. Ever.
So most of our cities have high pollution levels and if we all go green now we can make it better. Or in another way the government and its so called experts got it wrong, again. Although i do agree that we do need to something about the pollutants in our towns and cities but why should it just be the car drivers.
Most cities I go into are full of old buses that bellow out smoke. Old black cabs that leave a cloud behind them. These are 2 of the worst offenders and yet what is done. Oh yes put them on a machine that sees what the owner wants to see. A family run taxi firm will have a family run garage owned by a relative. A bus company will have a workshop that is owned by the bus company. Most taxis are diesel so why not start with them and the bus company and force them to change to hybrid or electric. Then lets lower the cost for replacing cars instead of forcing us to pay extortionate prices to buy a new one.
My final rant is this may well have been preplanned, in that, having the government say nothing till now and with the exiting of the EU, they will use the rise in purchasing of cars will add to them saying how well the economy is doing.
Fact still remains we were duped to buy a diesel and we will be duped into buying another new car.
First one must challenge all the statistical claims driving the environmental agenda & instead ask how many actual deaths have pollution recorded on the death certificate as the cause or a contributory cause of death? More specifically though, how many death certificates record a pollutant produced by motor vehiclaes as the actual or a contributory cause of death? This would be hard medical evidence, as opposed to statistical estimates based on assumptions?
Second one should aim for a balanced approach to clean air that doesn’t over react or introduce disproportionate penalties for driving our cars. By all means ensure that new vehicles are as clean as possible but avoid causing new vehicles to become prohibitavly expensive by creating regulation that is expensive to comply with because that would discourage people switching to cleaner [more expoensive] vehicles.
Finally, like it or not this is the consequence of yet another EU directive created by unelected bureaucrats & then presented to the European Parliament for approval. The trouble with being governed by bureacrats is that it is their job to interfere in the minutiae of al our lives but with every interference comes side effects, such as throwing dead fish back because they exceed some EU quota. It should be an elected government implementing manifesto pledges that we have at least had a chance to vote on, that decides our laws & not nameless unelected bureaucrats.
After The Goverment told us that diesel was good they are no saying it is bad. They knew about NO2 right from the start but it was covenient to ignore it. How in the future can we believe anything they say.
After saying that I have just been to Japan, They have a tranport system which works. The trafic in the cities was light. Maybe the Goveemnt should have invested in a proper tranport system across all the UK instead of building only on in London. Buses where I live are as rare as hens teeth.
A SOLUTION – Water – HHO,
A Hydrogen fuel cell, taking just a few Amps to convert water from H2O to HHO (Hydrogen & oxygen) added into the air intake, burns any fuel more Efficiently & more completely at a hotter temperature with less emissions, increased torque (& potential economy).
Drawing 4 Amps, my fuel cell adds a Small amount of Hydrogen into my Diesel car intake, reducing the MOT tested emissions (maximum for my car allowable – 1.5) from 0.47 down to 0.08!
Reducing emissions by 6x.
These Hydrogen fuel cells can be simply added to any motor & be appropriately emission tested!
We all have to accept we need cleaner cites in particular, along with everywhere else. We need to protect those who are vulnerable to the pollutants, and lowering the levels must be the answer, if we believe all we are told. Anything that raises significant levels of taxation and can be argued on moral grounds will be the course they pursue.
I own a diesel, a 2010 X6 35d, my last MOT had an ‘advisory’ ! NO EMISSIONS FIGURE GIVEN OUTPUT TOO LOW TO RECORD. And no BMW are not cheating. (probably)
No doubt even the good ? diesels will get caught up in the ‘clean up’, people already throw remarks and criticisms at me for owning such a horrible terrible polluting diesel. Guilty till eventually proven guilty, by continuing reductions in levels, when all the diesels are gone , YOU WILL BE NEXT ON THE LIST , WHAT FOR ? ANYTHING THAT JUSTIFIES RAISING A TAX.
I follow many cars belching smoke and fumes out of their exhaust pipe, both petrol and diesel.
We have lots of speed cameras but very very few checks on these vehicles, so why not start there, with those cars vans buses taxies etc.
I travel abroad in France and Spain by motorcycle, when I get to the end of any trip I am covered in black, in my ears , my nose, and I looked like racer in the old open racing cars from the 30/50s pictures.(I changes to a full face with a filter pad over the vent). When I travel by m/cycle in England , that does not happen! I do not get filthy dirty, covered in black greasy soot that you have to scrub off.The EU tells ‘us’ to clean up, they do not follow thro with their own rules in their own countries, we get their pollution from their diesel etc, and we also get thick dust clouds from their farming practices , specifically France, we are unfortunately down-wind of Europe. England has a better history of sticking to the rules than any other EU country with minor exceptions to some of the small northern areas, Sweden etc. But they are tiny in comparison. France , Spain, Italy, Greece etc etc, have no jobs, they are in deep financial trouble, Germany is not ! They are not going to implement a fierce regime that further damages their economies, but they will force us comply with the strong support of OUR own courts. If you want to look at a serious pollution issue look to the sky, air travel is huge, look at some of the main cities with a severe problem and you may also find an airport and heavy traffic of course, Cities around airports are usually thriving, busy working cities. Cities generally haver poorer populations with older vehicles and less cash to throw at their maintenance etc. IF you live IN these cities, London for instance you will NOT get hit by the taxes or charges for a few years after everyone else is, its almost an incentive to buy a really crap cheap car if you already live in the zones to be hit, and save money all round. Or buy a classic !!
Out of the EU or IN neither really will matter to the majority of us, same as Labour or Tory Govts it generally only makes those who voted for them feel better, actually very little changes. If a purge on diesels makes you feel better ! Raise the bar, make the pollution or emissions levels lower at the MOT , spend more money made from those taxes on systems that can clean older engines up, subsidise the systems, it can be done, but if you just want to sell more cars , or raise more taxes, it cannot !!!
I have a diesel Mercedes in greater London and I only clock up 3500 miles per annum as I rarely use my car – I commute and generally travel by public transport. As such, I think I’m polluting far less than a petrol driven vehicle averaging 12000 per annum.
Will this anomaly be taken into account with the powers to be?
So what? I have a petrol BMW in Greater London and I too only clock up 3500 miles per annum as I rarely use my car – I commute and generally travel by public transport. So presumably I’m polluting far less than you are, John.
Will this anomaly also be taken into account with the powers to be?
What you are failing to do is to compare diesel and petrol drivers fairly. There will some of both doing 12,000 miles a year and some of both doing 3500 miles a year. If drivers are to pay the penalty for polluting, it seems only fair that the greater polluters pay more.
And, of course, it’s not only distance travelled and type of fuel that are factors here. The type of driving matters too. As we (John and I) both do most of our driving in Greater London, I guess we should both pay more than someone who does most of their driving at 50-60mph on motorways.
None of those differences, of course, can be easily measured and, even if they could be, would result in 100+ different tax rates: an administrative nightmare.
So just accept that taxes are broadbrush and often unfair but are needed to achieve environmental, social, economic and health objectives.
Why is it that aviation the largest polluter – it burns the same fuel as diesel emits particles of carbon Nox Co Co2 – most airport sited in or near major cities flight paths directly over cities gets tax free fuel no VAT on fuel is allowed to double in the next 20 years BUT is not included in the clean air UK analysis??????
COuld it be that aviation like to oil industry has the USA hence UK in its oily fingers and squeezes until it gets what it wants?
Well How you expect me doing 2000 mile pa living rurally never flies to be penalised for driving a 60 mpg diesel “older” vehicle whilst letting aviation off the hook ? Get stuffed end of !
Yet again the inadequacies of the past few governments to invest in the road and transport infrastructure of this country is coming back to haunt all of us. Sadly it is the general public who are having to pay for their mistakes.
Let’s face it most of us drive or ride be it for work or pleasure. So to potentially say that people will have to pay to use their vehicles in certain areas is not going to go down too well at all.
Our roads network is crumbling and will only get worse until either more money is directed to it by central government or local authorities stop siphoning money off for their pet projects which should have been spent on the roads. I heard just recently that a long serving councillor in Hampshire resigned after finding out that of all the money that was assigned to road maintenance only 1% was spent on maintaining the counties roads.
Public transport is a well established joke. Expensive and woefully inadequate. we mock Europe for many things but certainly not their public transport. It is efficient,cheap and well maintained. €2 to travel anywhere for 2 hours. Why can’t we do this ?? Greed. Plain and simple.
Furthermore Europe seems to have a far more balanced use of transport. With two wheel useage featuring highly in many countries, followed by the car and public transport.
How many cars do you see that are single occupancy. A lot !!
How many kids do you see in this country jumping in a car as soon as they are seventeen. Lots. Is it really necessary. No ! Are we obsessed with the car in this country . Yes! Do we seem to be surprised that we seem to get knowhere fast these days, instead sitting in traffic. Yes.
The government would have you believe that electric vehicles are the answer. Certainly those with vested interests would have you and the politicians believe this. Simply put they are not. For starters they have to plug into a power source, produced by a power station, which is probably coal or gas fired. Secondly to produce the batteries required to power these vehicles is an ecological nightmare in itself. Thirdly ,disposal of such batteries is again an eco nightmare.
There are only two real alternatives. Hydrogen or methanol. Both of which only produce water as a bit-product. Unfortunately the technology has yet to be refined for general use.
Until such time we need to ensure the government invests in cheap efficient public transport, makes the road network better with less need for stop_start scenarios, more sensible use of speed limits, 30 for towns and cities and the national speed limit once out of town. It works abroad, so no reason it could not work here..
Encourage more two wheeled useage. Both engine and people powered.
Then and only then will things change for the better.
The diesel issue goes back to Tony Blair years if not before and diesel cars have been made progressively cleaner since then so why has the nitrogen issue not been resolved and why is something not being done about it now instead of forcing honest people to throw their hard earned money down the drain?
I asked the government through my MP to show evidence or provide references that prove or demonstrate that diesel car emissions are responsible for deaths in the population. I did this because i had spent a day scouring the web for facts and evidence to support the governments assertions, and guess what, in a reply from Dr Therese Coffey MP, Minister responsible for policy on air quality, she failed to provide any references or other evidence other than to say that ‘the process is directed by the EU’ but what you ask is their evidence. I suspect, though she didn’t say so that it will be speculative computer modelling and expert opinion…..or someones best guess.
Whilst I agree that governments have been hypocritical in this matter, let’s not all pretend that we bought diesels because we thought we were doing the environment a favour. Anyone with any sense could tell that the stuff coming out of a diesel vehicle’s exhaust is far more noxious than that of a petrol vehicle’s. No, the reason everyone bought them was to save money, mostly on fuel costs, and because a turbo diesel makes it easier to drive like a t**t and leave the person behind you in a cloud of soot as you pull away from traffic lights.
Let’s start this by saying; “What is the point of doing all this ‘SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT’ when these 3rd World Country’s are belching out Toxin’s WITHOUT a care in the World”…
As i see it the BIGGEST violator is the good Old US of A.
I might be wrong as Trump sits on his Throne as Presidential Campaign backers were Oil Company’s & that is again as I believe why the USA WOULDN’T join the KYOTO AGREEMENT…
Kind of Cutting off your Noise to Spite your Face, one could say.
I could rant on about this for Age’s, while were all sitting on our thumb’s thinking of ways to make Vehicles run of Cow’s Flagellants.
WHAT is the point of us changing just a LITTLE at GREAT expense while other’s have no respect for the World were KILLING???
a lot of misunderstanding here. Ultimately it’s the fault of the manufacturers lying as usual.
Firstly, diesel tax was increased under labour more than petrol and the public were warned of further such increases sending out the message that diesel was NOT preferable.
Then at the end of the last decade road tax became carbon based because the public were screaming for climate change measures. This is what pushed people over to diesel, not any love for the oily gas. Diesel is far less of a CO2 problem than petrol (but has the issue of other emissions eg NOx and particulates, not much of an issue while numbers were low but more recently the numbers of diesel vehicles has massively increased).
That hasn’t changed and if everyone goes back to petrol cars the CO2 problem rears its ugly head again which diesel cars were bearing down on.
Now the manufacturers promise was that they would deal with the particulates and NOx but when it came to it they basically dropped any technology that needed the customer to be topping up treatments more than once/ year (ie at a service). They implemented particulate filters (ovens that collect and burn off the soot) but it’s questionable if they really do enough of a job re particle size addressed. And then the issues were allowed to be quietly pushed off the table largely because of the massive financial crisis.
Technology could be introduced to deal with diesel but it seems the manufacturers don’t want to entertain it. So now the public has to pay for renewal of the vehicle fleet and the manufacturers will support this direction of travel as it means bringing forward purchases.
Car companies will lie to you and pressure politicians to take a certain course of action. I’m afraid we’re powerless to deal with it – although the EU isn’t, as they have much wider clout.
I say to hell with the EU they have ruled us for to many years telling what we can do and can’t do. Now they want to get rid of Diesel cars. It’s not because of the pollution in the air it’s because the cars now a days are made better so not so many emissions so the tax is lower and the government is not getting so much paid to them now. I know this because 4 car dealerships in Birmingham have told me this.
I say get rid of all diesel lorries Buses and Trains they are the worst and leave our cars alone. But no they won’t as they are so selfish and greedy.
Here we go again, EU stupidity. Back in the seventies and eighties I traveled regularly to Holland, every taxi was a diesel Mercedes, in the days when Mercs were very expensive in UK. The reason they were diesel was the price of fuel, much cheaper than petrol and more mpg. UK was pushed into buying diesel cars by Brown and his cronies. The result, higher prices for diesel than petrol per litre and higher road tax. I run a 15 year old Toyota Landcruiser (best car ever built) which will still be going strong in another 15 years. How many petrol hatch backs would I have gone through in 15 years? Probably four minimum, and how much pollution would be created in manufacturing those? The old bus attracts £285.00 a year road tax. My Missus bought a new Shogun last year with “improved emissions”, road tax £500.00 a year how does that work, answers on a postcard please? Government make more than enough out of me so they can shove any EU rules where the sun don’t shine. The sooner we get out of this crazy club the better, tell them to take a hike!
Could someone tell me what a bus is. I don’t think I have seen one.