Transport and the budget (Jonathon Porritt)

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« Government and the low carbon economy | Main | The budget - green vs sustainable »

Transport and the budget

I skimmed the newspapers this morning to pick up on any unexpected ‘green vibes’ around the Budget. Every indication is that there isn’t going to be any big “New Deal” brought forward, as part of a larger recovery package, although lots of ‘green lollypops’ will no doubt be there in the shop window.

And almost certainly a number of them will cover transport. A £5,000 subsidy for purchasers of electric cars has been widely flagged plus a few tens of millions to subsidise charging points. Hopefully, we’ll also see some details around the Government’s earlier commitment to promote electric vehicles through the Low Carbon Vehicles Procurement programme.

On the whole, this would be a good thing. The Committee on Climate Change has been very clear in its advice to government that the wholesale electrification of transport (apart from aviation!) is a precondition of meeting our long term targets on CO2 and other greenhouse gases. A lot depends on where that electricity will come from, but its good to see at least one little government toe in the water.

And then there’s the whole debate about a possible scrappage scheme – with motorists getting up to £2000 to hand in their old cars and buy new ones. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has been lobbying ferociously to get this through, simply as a support mechanism for hard-pressed car companies. (Car sales in March were down 30% on last year). They argue it has worked in January in terms of new car sales, so why shouldn’t it work here?

It might. But there will be zero sustainability benefits arising from such a scheme even if it does. Even if people buy slightly ‘greener’ models, there will still be very high emissions arising because of all the CO2 embedded in the manufacture of those cars. So the cost per tonne per CO2 saved is very high.

Environmentalists have argued that a much better use of taxpayer’s money would be for the Government to support the establishment of low-carbon car clubs – reducing congestion, reducing emissions, and reducing costs for those motorists smart enough to realise they can get almost all the benefits they want from the use of a car, without the hassle of actually owning one.

All of this will be a big test of Darling’s “seriousness of intent”, helping move transport policy just a little bit further down the road to its inevitable low-carbon destination.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on April 22, 2009 1:44 PM | Permalink

Comments (3)

I was intrigued by the Chancellors comments about his low carbon budget. Not once did he mention public transport and was sufficiently vague about his committment to Green technology.

I am wondering why he decsides to perservere with Car manaufacturing based on oil consumption (noting also that he seems to ignore the job losses in the Car sector and indeed the country's general decline in manaufacturing. I cant help thinking he has missed several tricks.

The encouragement to design and manufacture alternatively propelled vehicles is just not there.

The scrappage scheme perpetuates the current manufacturing processes and does nothing to save the 15% of a car's energy requirements at manufacture.

His call for innovation seems to land in the digital technology sector, whatever that is

The £750 million is just not enough

The retraining requirements of existing workforce in manufacturing ( i.e over 25s)is ignored, these could have been pointed in the direction of the new green technololgy he is keen to promote.

This was a genuine opportunity to restructure and re direct the Car industry into alternative fuel technologies and it has failed.

The preoccupation of wind farms , again is ill thought through as more investment is required.

If he is going down the route of electric vehicles, we come back to the governments energy policy in producing electricity, hardly coherent in itself.

We used to lead the world in innovation and manufacturing, surely with some further investment we could lead the world in the invention of more fuel efficient vehicles and their subsequent manufacture and dispense with our reliance on oil as a power source.

All in all the scene was set to innovate and become greener instead of repair an existing economy based on financial services.

Posted by Len Jones | April 22, 2009 4:36 PM

And another thing. the governments plans for electric vehicle charging points are misplaced.

I did not see anything in the budget promoting the rumoured intention to introduce trials of electric vehicles and a network of charging posts in major cities within the next couple of years. Mayor Boris said he would like to see 100000 of such vehicles and 25000 charging points by 2015, with the GLA funding £20 million and HM treasury the remaining £40 million,this is not going to happen until conventional electric vehicles are mass produced. The new electric Mini test driven by Peter Mandelson just does not fit the bill, the Battery took up most of the available back
seat, and that the biggest handicap to progress is battery technology. Until this is solved (through the Governments innovation strategy?) Electric vehicles are a non starter.
The way technology is at the moment, we will probably see the re emergence of articulated buses on the streets of London with the back end solely devoted to the power source.
I did see a good example of electric powered buses, I think they were called trams.
If the Government are serious about this then the source of energy needs also to be produced in an environmentally friendly way, if Electric vehicles become the norm we are facing a further huge demand in Electricity, so we again debate the use of nuclear v gas v coal, and I am not sure that solves the CO2 problem.

This debate is also about our pre occupation with the car, If Boris is serious about encouraging electric vehicles in London to the extent he says, he needs to consider the congestion aspect, and realise that public transport deserves more attention.
Jonathan's ideas of low carbon car clubs would be a half way house provided we get the energy efficiency right.

Posted by Len Jones | April 22, 2009 5:00 PM

Please see my submission to Jonathan's blog "The budget green vs sustainable"
Regards,
Pete Ridley, Human-made Global Warming Agnostic

Posted by Pete Ridley | April 23, 2009 11:28 PM

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