The BBC is reporting this morning that the British Government is set to announce that new diesel and petrol cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2040 in a bid to tackle air pollution.
These latest planned proposals stem from publicity from a report report from the UK’s Royal College of Physicians last year that claimed air pollution cuts short 40,000 lives a year in the UK.
The BBC says that ministers will also unveil a Stg.£255m fund to help their councils tackle emissions from diesel vehicles, as part of a Stg.£3bn package of spending on air quality.
The government will later publish its clean air strategy, favouring electric cars, before a High Court deadline.
Campaigners said the measures were promising, but more detail was needed.
They had wanted government-funded and mandated clean air zones, with charges for the most-polluting vehicles to enter areas with high pollution, included in the plans.
After a protracted legal battle, the government was ordered by the courts to produce new plans to tackle illegal levels of harmful pollutant nitrogen dioxide.
Judges agreed with environmental campaigners that previous plans were insufficient to meet EU pollution limits.
Ministers had to set out their draft clean air strategy plans in May, with the final measures due by 31 July.
Charging plans?
Britain’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the government would give more than £200m to local authorities to draw up plans to tackle particular roads with high pollution.
“What we’re saying to local authorities is come up with an imaginative solution to these proposals,” he told the Today programme.
Asked if there could be charges for drivers of certain vehicles he said: “I don’t believe that it is necessary to bring in charging, but we will work with local authorities in order to determine what the best approach is.”
Industry interests
Local measures could include altering buses and other transport to make them cleaner, changing road layouts, altering features such as speed humps, and re-programming traffic lights to make vehicle-flow smoother.
It is thought ministers will consult on a scrappage scheme later this year, but there is no firm commitment.
Ministers have been wary of being seen to “punish” drivers of diesel cars, who, they argue, bought the vehicles after being encouraged to by the last Labour government because they produced lower carbon emissions.
The industry trade body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said it was important to avoid outright bans on diesels, which would hurt the sector.
SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “Currently demand for alternatively fuelled vehicles is growing but still at a very low level
“The industry instead wants a positive approach which gives consumers incentives to purchase these cars. We could undermine the UK’s successful automotive sector if we don’t allow enough time for the industry to adjust.”
The UK announcement comes amid signs of an accelerating shift towards electric cars instead of petrol and diesel ones, both at home and abroad:
• Earlier this month, President Emmanuel Macron announced similar plans to phase out diesel and petrol cars in France, also from 2040.
• BMW announced on Tuesday that a fully electric version of the Mini will be built at the Cowley plant in Oxford from 2019.
• Swedish carmaker Volvo has said all new models will have an electric motor from the same year.
It is being further reported that the government plan will not contain a vehicle scrappage scheme, although this will be reconsidered in the autumn.
The auto industry will feel aggrieved and targeted by these proposals because the plans do not address pollution from construction, farming and gas boilers.
And at the same time, clean air campaigners say the British Government is using the 2040 electric cars announcement to distract from failings in its short-term policy.
Air pollution is thought to be linked to about 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK, and transport also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.
A government spokesman said poor air quality was “the biggest environmental risk” to public health in the UK.
“This government is determined to take strong action in the shortest time possible,” he said.
“Our plan to deal with dirty diesels will help councils clean up emissions hotspots – often a single road – through common sense measures which do not unfairly penalise ordinary working people.”
2020s switch-over
The measures are “good” in the long term but “not very effective” in the short, industry expert David Bailey said.
A switch-over to electric cars would likely come in the mid-2020s, he predicted, when electric cars would out-compete petrol and diesel ones on factors like cost.
“This sets a very clear direction of travel, but petrol and diesel cars won’t exist by 2040,” he said. But he said more incentives were needed now, otherwise urban air quality would not improve.
They say that if Britain sneezes, we catch a cold – so let’s see how long it takes Denis Naughton, TD and Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment to give direction here?
The 40,000 lives lost a year in the UK claim explained
The 40,000 figure for the UK stems from extensive research over decades in the US. It’s a statistical construct not a count of actual deaths. There is no question that air pollution is a serious health problem but it’s difficult to assess its precise impact.
It is not possible to count the number of people who have died early as a result of pollution because nobody has air pollution written as the cause of death on their death certificates.
This means that comparisons between numbers of people killed by air pollution and, for example, tuberculosis or malaria are generally bogus.
Air pollution tends to make existing conditions worse, especially cardiovascular disease and lung conditions.
The 40,000 early deaths figure is a statistical construct, which originated in a report from the Royal College of Physicians last year.
That report combined figures for deaths contributed to by PM2.5 (which is particulates in the air that are smaller than 2.5 micrometres) and those from nitrogen dioxide.
The figure it used for PM2.5 was 29,000, which was calculated in 2009 by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP), which provides independent advice to government on the effects of pollution.
The nitrogen dioxide (NO2) figure was 23,500 attributable deaths – it came from a 2015 report from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Clearly those numbers do not add up to 40,000, but there is some overlap between them, so the combined estimate of 40,000 was taken.