‘End new fossil fuel car sales in 2030’

AIR QUALITY

Leaders of cities in England and Wales are urging the Government to ban the sale of new pure diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2030 – ten years earlier than planned. 

The call was made this week at an air quality summit organised by the mayor of London, the UK100 network of local government leaders who champion  clean energy, and the Institute for Public Policy Research. 

The alliance also wants: 

• an enhanced Clean Air Fund to support clean air zones; 

• a targeted national vehicle renewal scheme to replace older polluting vehicles; and 

• a Clean Air Act that would adopt World Health Organisation  guidelines for pollutants and be  enforced by a new independent statutory body

This week’s summit coincided with clean air day, organised by environmental charity Global Action Plan. 

The chairity has published a new report on the health costs associated with road transport air pollution, which draws on a report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). The RCP and RCPCH estimated that exposure to particulate matter and NOx was linked to around 40,000 early deaths in the UK each year, with an annual social cost of £22.6bn (both with a range for a central estimate of ±25 per cent). 

Christian Brand, co-director of the UK energy research centre at the University of Oxford, and Alistair Hunt, a lecturer in environmental economics at the University of Bath, estimate that cars and vans are responsible for more than a quarter (£5.9bn a year) of these costs, with cars contributing about £3.8bn (central estimate, in a range of £1.8bn to £5.7bn) and vans about £2.2bn (central estimate, in a range of £1bn to £3.3bn). “About four-fifths of the car health costs are due to pollution from diesel cars and one-fifth due to conventional and hybrid electric petrol cars,” they say, adding that the estimates are “conservative”.