Category Archives: Automotive emissions

Paris mayor plans to triple SUV parking tariffs to cut air pollution

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‘It’s a form of social justice,’ says Anne Hidalgo of move to target richest drivers to tackle climate breakdown

Paris intends to triple parking charges for large sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in order to push them out of the city and limit emissions and air pollution, the mayor has said.

“It is a form of social justice,” Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday of the plan to deliberately target the richest drivers to tackle the climate breakdown and air pollution. “This is about very expensive cars, driven by people who today have not yet made the changes to their behaviour that have to be made [for the climate].”

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Sunak accused of retreating from global climate leadership at Cop28

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PM attracts cross-party criticism with claim that ‘climate politics is at breaking point’ during combative summit visit

Rishi Sunak has been accused of “shrinking and retreating” from global leadership as he used the Cop28 summit to claim that “climate politics is at breaking point” because of the costs of net zero.

While many other world leaders, including King Charles, spoke of the urgency of action on the climate, the prime minister used his brief appearance at the summit in Dubai to promote his approach to slowing the pace of net zero policies and reducing pressures on family finances.

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‘Breakthrough battery’ from Sweden may cut dependency on China

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Northvolt says new lithium-free sodium-ion battery is cheaper, more sustainable and doesn’t rely on scarce raw materials

Europe’s energy and electric vehicle industries could reduce their dependency on scarce raw materials from China after the launch of a “breakthrough” sodium-ion battery, according to its Swedish developer.

Northvolt, Europe’s only large homegrown electric battery maker, has said it has made a lower cost, more sustainable battery designed to store electricity which does not use lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt.

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Rishi Sunak delays some green targets and scraps others as he reveals net zero policy shift – as it happened

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PM says people to be given more time to switch gas boilers to heat pumps, and ban on sale of new petrol and diesel cars delayed

Climate scientists have expressed dismay at reports that Rishi Sunak is to row back on net zero commitments, arguing that this would be harmful not just environmentally, but economically too.

Prof Myles Allen, professor of geosystem sciences at Oxford University, said:

We haven’t heard the actual speech yet, but we all have to hope the PM is true to his word that he is looking for better ways to deliver net zero, not just slower ways. As we have found time and again in Britain, dithering costs money. The USA is seeing other countries’ faltering as an opportunity to get ahead. It will be sad indeed if we just see it as an opportunity to join the laggards.

It’s not pragmatic, it’s pathetic. This rolling back on emissions cuts for short-term political gain will undermine the transition to net zero and with it the future opportunities, prosperity and safety of the entire country.

Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide which causes global warming which amplifies the consequences of extreme weather events, as we have so clearly seen this summer. Climate change will continue until we reach net zero globally, and we will then have to suffer the consequences of that warmer world for decades or more. It also matters how we reach net zero, not just when – delaying action means more emissions which means more severe consequences.

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Government to use Ulez expansion to attack Labour over ‘war on motorists’

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Ministers hope anti-green message will impress voters, as London mayor says he is ‘a doer, not a delayer’

The government is to use the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to go on the attack over what it has called “Labour’s war on motorists”, part of a wider battle against green policies it hopes could prove popular with voters.

With the extension of the clean air scheme to every London borough beginning at midnight on Monday, Sadiq Khan, the capital’s Labour mayor, said that while the decision was difficult, the devastating health effects of toxic exhausts trumped other considerations.

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Carmakers double spending on ads in Australia for SUVs and utes

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Exclusive: Data shows huge jump in promotion and an 80% increase in sales of larger and more polluting vehicles, leading to calls for ban on ads

Carmakers have doubled how much they spend advertising SUVs and utes to Australians over the past decade, which has coincided with surging uptake of larger cars, triggering calls for a ban on advertising the highest polluting vehicles.

Advertising spends for SUVs and light commercial vehicles – a category which includes four-wheel drive utes – jumped from about $100m in 2010 to about $197m in 2022, according to analysis of digital, television, outdoor, radio, cinema and print advertising compiled by climate advocacy group Comms Declare.

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Court hears councils’ legal challenge over London Ulez expansion

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Five Tory-led councils seeking to block mayor’s plans to extend ultra-low emission zone to whole of capital

A legal challenge to plans to expand London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to the whole of the capital will be heard in the high court on Tuesday as five Conservative-led councils seek to block the proposals.

The Ulez is due to expand at the end of August from the boundary of the north and south circular roads to throughout Greater London, requiring drivers of the most polluting vehicles to pay a fee when using them in the area.

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EU ministers to approve vehicle emissions law after deal with Germany

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Berlin secures concessions over future use of e-fuels after going back on agreement struck last year

EU ministers are expected to approve a draft law on emissions standards for cars on Tuesday, after reaching a deal with Germany over the weekend that ended a damaging row over a key part of Europe’s green deal.

Pascal Canfin, a French centrist MEP who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said an EU law that all cars sold from 2035 must produce zero emissions “will be voted unchanged, including by Germany” on Tuesday.

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Dieselgate: millions of ‘extremely’ polluting cars still on Europe’s roads, says report

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The research group that first exposed the scandal say ‘it’s not over’ and that governments must act

Thirteen million diesel cars producing “extreme” levels of toxic air pollution are still on the roads in Europe and the UK, according to a report, seven years after the Dieselgate scandal first exploded.

The non-profit research group, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), revealed in 2015 that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. The scandal led to a more rigorous test being introduced in the EU in 2019.

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Thailand’s tuk-tuks go green amid rising demand for electric models

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Travel without the combustion-engine fumes and noise is increasingly popular in the country with some of the world’s worst air pollution

Thailand’s iconic, gas-guzzling tuk-tuks are being replaced by a greener, more energy efficient model, offering travellers a more environmentally friendly way of getting around what is one of the world’s worst countries when it comes to air pollution.

“The benefits are quite clear in terms of the environment”, says Krisada Kritayakirana, co-founder and CEO of start-up Urban Mobility Tech. “When you use traditional tuk-tuks, you can smell the gas and it sometimes could be unpleasant. With the electric tuk-tuks, basically you don’t have any noise and you don’t have any emission from tailpipes.”

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Washington state to ban sales of new gas cars by 2035, following California

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Public will have chance to weigh in on details of plan, with transportation accounting for 40% of state greenhouse gas emissions

Washington state will follow California and prohibit the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035, Jay Inslee, the state governor, said.

California regulators on Thursday moved forward with a landmark plan to phase out the sale of gas cars over the next 13 years in the US’s largest auto market.

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California bans sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 in milestone step

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Move to electric vehicles hailed as ‘monumental’ but challenges in consumer affordability and charging infrastructure lie ahead

California has approved a ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 as the state takes dramatic steps to reduce emissions and combat the climate emergency.

In a vote on Thursday, state regulators moved forward with a plan to phase out the sale of gas cars over the next 13 years in America’s largest auto market.

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Federal government under pressure to increase EV uptake after ACT announces petrol car ban

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Electric vehicle advocates and auto industry say Australia needs nationally mandated fuel efficiency standards

The federal government is under pressure to act to increase the uptake of electric vehicles after the Australian Capital Territory became the first state or territory to announce an end to the sale of petrol cars.

The Zero Emission Vehicle strategy was announced by the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, on Tuesday and commits the territory to phasing out internal combustion engines by 2035. This means no new petrol engine vehicles could be sold in the territory past that date.

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Antihero to zero: VW rises from ‘dieselgate’ to lead charge on electric vehicles

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Volkswagen embraces the future with €35bn investment, including in its Zwickau plant

Two bronze statues that guard the entrance to Zwickau train station in Saxony tell the tale of Germany’s struggle to wean itself off fossil fuels.

A crouching miner cradles a lamp in a nod to the lignite, a particularly dirty form of coal, that was dug from this part of former East Germany, fuelling its factories and power stations. His companion, an engineer, represents the car industry that dominates Germany’s industrial heartland.

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London drivers ditching diesel cars six times faster than rest of UK

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Abandoning of polluting vehicles has accelerated since expansion of ultra-low emission zone announced

Drivers in London have abandoned diesel cars six times faster than those in the rest of the UK since Sadiq Khan announced plans for a massive expansion of the London’s clean air zone.

Research released days before London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is rolled out across the capital shows there are about 128,000 fewer diesel cars on the city’s roads than in 2017, when the mayor announced plans to create one of the biggest clean air zones in Europe.

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The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport

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To every age dogged with pollution, accidents and congestion, the transport solution for the next generation seems obvious – but the same problems keep coming back

In the 1890s, the biggest cities of the western world faced a mounting problem. Horse-drawn vehicles had been in use for thousands of years, and it was hard to imagine life without them. But as the number of such vehicles increased during the 19th century, the drawbacks of using horses in densely populated cities were becoming ever more apparent.

In particular, the accumulation of horse manure on the streets, and the associated stench, were impossible to miss. By the 1890s, about 300,000 horses were working on the streets of London, and more than 150,000 in New York City. Each of these horses produced an average of 10kg of manure a day, plus about a litre of urine. Collecting and removing thousands of tonnes of waste from stables and streets proved increasingly difficult.

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