Shocking news!
£4 billion penalty on drivers achieves just 1% reduction in vehicle emissions!
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008...l
The "green levy" on motorists announced in Alistair Darling's first Budget will double car tax revenue to £4 billion but reduce vehicle emissions by less than one per cent, Treasury figures have showed. .....
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It doesn't surprise me at all. Let's just suppose someone decides they no longer want to run their high band car because of the punitive RFL costs. They trade it in or sell it, and buy a low band car. At this fundamental level, their personal emissions are reduced, and the government's "aim" is achieved.
Where the policy falls flat on its face is when you look at what happens to their old car. It's sold on cheap to someone else who can justify offsetting the extra RFL cost against the fact they paid peanuts for the car in the first place. They continue to drive the car which produces the same emissions as it would have if the original owner had kept it.
A measure introduced on new registrations only would make a lot of sense, and would, given time, drive emissions downwards as people make CO2 and RFL costs a major part of their buying decision. To retrospectively apply it to older cars though, as the government did is just money grabbing, and has no environmental benefit at all.
Frankly, a half clued up ten year old could have predicted this would happen.
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At least people are slowly waking up to this now. People will soon realise when the letter arrives from the DVLA and they find their tax is up by a large %. (Mine will be up 110%)
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I think DP hit the nail on the head there.
Devaluing the 'polluting' cars means they can be bought cheaply and the money saved easily pays for the extra tax.
Giving buyers an incentive to buy more efficient cars is OK, but penalising those who are stuck with an older car is grossly unfair.
Surely it would be better (environmentally anyway) to allow the older cars to simply 'die off' with natural wastage - not forcing them to be replaced with another batch of brand new cars, with, as DP says, the old ones still being run anyway!
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It was never a "GREEN TAX" it was always a
Mr G "BROWN TAX" .
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"Green" tax"
I'm afraid that there is no such thing with regard to CO2/Global warming/greenhouse effect. We are being totally conned by any suggestion that taxing cars/reducing car use will have any discernible effect on Global Warming/climate change/greenhouse effect.
Simple figures (from the IPCC so I am not being seen as a "climate change denier")
90% of Greenhouse effect is down to water (70% water vapour, 20% clouds)
10% therefore left to the other Greenhouse gases - let's assume for simplicity that all these are all CO2 (forgetting methane, ozone etc)
of this, 96.6% is natural, so lets say that 4% (being generous) of 10% of greenhouse effect is down to man. That means that if you removed every scrap of CO2 produced by man, (stop breathing at the back please) the greenhouse effect would go down by 0.04%. (Hope I've got the decimal point in right place!)
Of that 0.04%, about 30% (0.013ish) is down to all forms of transport - so get rid of all aircraft, ships, trucks and cars and what effect do you have on "The Greenhouse Efffect", global warming etc?????
Expensive ain't it?
And this is climate change which has been (IPCC figures again) of 0.6 degrees (plus or minus 0.2 degrees) since 1880
And the Government says that it's a Green Tax to reduce CO2 emissions to combat climate change?? Come on guys it's like swatting one mosquito and claiming to reduce malaria in the world.
But surely there must be a serious flaw in my figures - Gov can't be that wrong can it??
Edited by PhilW on 24/04/2008 at 19:47
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Oh, and while I am rant mode (bad day at work?) Here's another brilliant idea. Let's switch to bio fuel to reduce CO2. Let's grow lots of crops for bunging in petrol and diesel. How do we do that? Cut down some forest? (Don't forests take up CO2?). Forget food crops, let's grow "bio fuel crops". Sell our grain to fuel companies (filling a 4x4 with ethanol uses enough maize to feed a person for a year according to Torygraph today) so that people starve and general food prices increase rapidly?
Bloomin' brilliant. Should reduce CO2 by a good bit though if a few billion people starve to death and we can't afford to run cars. But at least we will not have these fantastic temp increases (0.6 degrees since 1880 - and that's assuming that we measured world temps correctly in 1880 - could be 2 deg more or 2 deg less - IPCC).
Must be me that's mad - nobody else in a position of responsibility in the British Gov, EU etc agrees.
Off for another glass of the red stuff - give it a few hundred years and at this rate I might be able to grow my own grapes in the back garden - assuming it's not covered in a mile thick glacier.
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How about some positive ideas for a change.
How would you reduce CO2 and vehicle emissions from vehicles ?
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Engine limit of 1500cc and max power output of 100hp and every possible addition to the tailpipe to cut out nasty emmissions....
Cracking car to drive.... not!
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>>How about some positive ideas for a change.
How would you reduce CO2 and vehicle emissions from vehicles ?<<
Clear the roads of speed humps/pinch points "traffic calming"(driver angering?) nonsense and let traffic flow easily. Apply sensible, appropriate speed limits. Phase traffic lights so that they aid, not impede, traffic flow. Clear parked cars from through roads and return them to 2 way carriageways instead of single lane with passing places. Work on the theory that people are driving to somewhere to park and leave the car, not wandering aimlessly about for the sake of it.
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IF the Government were serious, they should stop planning new eco towns.
They should positively encourage people to live closer to work.
They should provide better public transport.
They should prevent building out of town shopping centres.
They would not build new airports.
They would not drive around in large Ministerial cars.
In other words, it would be obvious.
What is obvious is that they are a bunch of : words deleted but choose whatever you think appropriate.
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I agree with everything madf says, and would add one thing.
There is no need in this day and age for a significant proportion of the working population to have to commute to an office every day of the week. I can work from anywhere in the world as long as it has an internet connection. Company policy prevents this happening, not technology.
If you removed unneccesary commuters from the roads, those who have to drive would be able to do it with markedly reduced congestion, and therefore lower emissions.
This could be enforced via the tax system with a "carrot" system of tax incentives to any company who can prove that they let the appropriate workforce work from home, or a closer office, say 3 days a week. Compared to the current abomination of complexity that is the UK tax system, this would be a doddle to draft and implement.
Or how about a system that lets people claim tax relief back on rail and bus fares for commuting purposes? If I'm being asked to pay £6k for a season ticket, as I would be if I used the train, it's an extra kick in the teeth to think that I have to find it out of already taxed income!
If all this were about the environment rather than simply raking in money, solutions like this would have been at least discussed seriously. As it stands, every "initiative" the government comes up with involves people paying more, and completely fails to deal with the real issues, as we're told they are.
Cheers
DP
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What a lot of common sense being aired on here How about you all becoming MPs and getting things sorted
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doesnt the bio-fuel process use fermentation of plant starches /sugars to produce alcohol as the fuel? if so any 13 year old will tell you that the by product of said process is CO2 the stuff thats puts the fizz in your pint of Old Original, So in effect bio-fuel produces CO2 twice , once in its manufacture and then again as its burnt in the engine...Do i win the nobel peace prize for common sense?
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This is just a way of getting yet more money from motorists under the 'green umbrella'. It's that pure and simple. No use wasting your time complaining about motoring taxes as no one in government gives a toss.
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Unless we stood for a recognised party, none of us would be elected.
If we told the truth (as we see it) ditto.
Most people vote without thinking for a a party which relies on pavlovian reflexes amongst voters with no sign of intelligence .
After all, any motorist who - in court for a motoring offence - would be jailed for perjury and obstructing justice - if they spoke and acted as most MPs.
And if my comments appear harsh.. the 10% income tax issue was raised with Labour MPs and the Government at least 9 months ago.
Any suggestion that our Parliamentary system is deisgned to serve the interests of UK citizens is like suggesting that the Criminal InJustice System exists to protect the public or that Green Taxes are Green.
After all, the Government is so concerend about CO2 levels the next new (and badly needed) power stations will be coal fired and the Government gave up on a system to capture CO2 emissions from coal powered power stations.
So anyone who believes anything the Government says in the same year (not breath:-) about motoring and Green Issues should be placed in a darkened room until their brain cools down.
Edited by madf on 25/04/2008 at 18:06
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This never was a green tax as people hve said and the reason that the government continues to fleece the motorist is because we simply let them.Why make these tax band retrospective? My opinion is that more people are buying less polluting and more fuel effiient cars. This will only continue to be the case as new technology comes into play. Answer make the bands retrospective and introduce more of them over a narrower scale. A middle of the road car like a Citroen C5 2.2 HDI will be paying £205 a year. The only way to deal with this government and Kommy Ken is to give them the "heave ho" at the ballot box. It is all about money and an attempt to control lives.
If in 10 years time emmission come down these bands will just be slid back pus road charging which was off the agenda is suddenly back on again. I have written reasoned arguments to M.P's and just get automaton responses. Take Alistair Darling for example wiiting to the E.U saying that he is not satisfied with the proposed 120 g/km average of CO2. He wants 100 g/km. I asked him by email how in the time frame given ang given the cost of developing new cars this would be achieved. Did he reply? No, ignorance and power is a dangerous thing. I am sick of all this Green nonsense. I am going to go out and buy a pre 2001 V8 engind car S500 or something to spite these people. My miles are low and these cars are cheapih to service at a specialist than a family hatch at a dealer. Rant over!
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P.S tell them how you feel:
ministers@hm-treasury.gsi.gov.uk
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Is Green the new Red Comrade?
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