By Paul Homewood
The government’s decision to ban sales of conventional petrol and diesel cars from 2040 has generated a lot of debate this week.
The decision has been justified as a way of improving air quality, as well as one to meet climate targets.
The second objective is clear. Jesse Norman, the parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Transport (DfT) recently confirmed Theresa May’s administration would stick with its pre-election pledge.
In a written answer to the Commons, Mr Norman added: “The Government has a manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans on our roads to be zero emission by 2050. We believe this would necessitate all new cars and van being zero emission vehicles by 2040.”
Note the term zero emission.
This would imply that even hybrids will be banned by then.
But what about the first objective.
It is not clear how a ban on conventional cars in 2040 will do anything to help air pollution in the next few years, even though it may speed up the development of electric technology eventually.
Surely if the government was serious, it would take action now to switch demand from diesel to petrol. There would be many ways to do this, starting with the tax system.
We are told that:
Ministers have identified 81 major roads in 17 towns and cities where urgent action is required because they are in breach of EU emissions standards, putting people’s health at risk.
It sounds bad, but seriously,just 81 roads? There must be many ways to take immediate action to improve matters on such a small number of roads, and indeed the government has acted to empower local authorities.
Banning all petrol/diesel cars is rather taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut!
Huge improvements in vehicle emissions have taken place in recent years, and will no doubt continue. Would it not make more sense for the government to continue to set tough new targets (along with the power to massively fine cheats like Volkswagen)?
There is no reason why, by 2040, emissions from cars should not be much less than now.
Such improvements will probably be less likely now, as there is now little incentive for car manufacturers to continue to develop conventional cars.
In my view, part of the problem is London. Understandably, air quality is a much bigger issue there. The problem, however, is that most policy makers, politicians, civil servants, “experts” and media operatives live and work there. Consequently they dream up solutions, which they then needlessly apply to the whole country.
We keep hearing claims about “40000 deaths a year from air pollution”. But according to Tony Frew, respiratory physician at the University of Brighton, the claim is nonsense:
Sadiq Khan’s figure on pollution deaths is a "zombie statistic and it’s simply not true," according to a respiratory physician.
Figures have been released claiming pollution causes almost 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. Air pollution is also said to cause a total 340,000 years of lost life in the UK.
Figures originated from a Royal College of Physicians report and Mr Khan has cited the figures in announcing measures to cut pollution in London.
But Tony Frew, respiratory physician at the University of Brighton, told Julia Hartley-Brewer this is merely an example of a "zombie statistic", meaning "however much you try to kill it it comes back and it’s simply not true."
He explained that the 340,000 life years figure doesn’t equate to real life, and in reality each person loses only about three days from their lifespan as a result of pollution.
Frew also said that the 40,000 deaths a year figure is "a guess" using information about two pollutants which overlap.
He added that pollution levels are "illegal because we made it illegal, not because it’s dangerous."
Euan Mearns also carried a detailed analysis of these claims in a post here.
In fact, many experts are highly dubious of the Royal College’s claim.
As I have pointed out, most people who die from respiratory diseases are very old. Through all of their lives, they will have experienced far, far worse pollution than today, both indoors and outdoors. It is simply impossible to separate the effects of past pollution from present.
Yet, as Frew points out, the emotive claim of 40000 deaths won’t be killed off.
And just how bad is air quality in the UK?
According to government statistics, emissions of Nox and PMs are way down, even since the 1990s.
This will be immediately obvious to anybody old enough to have lived in London, or other cities, a few decades ago.
And in comparison with the rest of the EU, we are on a par with the likes of Germany:
Observed concentrations of PM2.5 in 2014. The map shows the PM2.5 annual mean concentrations. The red and dark-red dots indicate stations with concentrations exceeding the target value (25 μg/m3). The dark green dots indicate stations reporting values below the WHO air quality guidance for PM2.5 (10 μg/m3). Only stations with more than 75 % of valid data have been included in the map
Which all brings us back to my introduction. The move to ban all petrol/diesel cars appears to have been largely designed to meet climate targets.
This would have gone down like a lead balloon with the public. So, to sugar the pill, the government has decided to deceitfully employ the air pollution argument.
I will end with a question.
Why should not we leave the decision of which cars to drive to the voters in 2040? What gives us the right to determine that ourselves now?
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
July 28, 2017 at 08:51AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 