In the UK road transport accounts for 20% of total national carbon emissions, and is the third largest single contributor to carbon emissions totals. They produce carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all of which are incredibly damaging. Finally, they road transport, as one substantial part of the transport sector, are part of one of the fastest growing sectors in terms of carbon emissions; when it comes to cars, emissions are getting worse, not better.
Understandably, a number of key environmental thinkers and lobbyists are pressurising the car industry, calling for cars that utilise green technology. That technology is certainly available; hybrid cars and electric cars have been researched, developed and manufactured. Why then, environmental lobbies ask, do the car industry not receive with open arms, such tantalising developments?
More pragmatically, it has also been suggested that, at least until hybrid or electric cars take off properly, a cap should be placed on cars with larger engines, so that any CO2 emissions as a result of road transport are minimised. That way, at least, the damage dealt by cars in the UK, and its effect on climate change, is only as damaging as is practically necessary.
The Missed Opportunity – Government Could Have Included Green Cars in the Car Scrappage Scheme
A cap on the size of car engines in the UK could only be administered by government, and a number of environmentalists saw the recently unveiled car scrappage scheme as a perfect opportunity to introduce legislation on reduction of car engine sizes; in a scheme that sees the government award £2000 toward the purchase of a brand new car when one scraps a car over 10 years old, it was believed that a restriction on the cars available for the scheme, would be preferable.
This preference, for environmentalists, included the stipulation that the new car must be less damaging in terms of carbon emissions than the old one. This has been the case in Germany and Italy, two of the countries in which similar schemes have begun, and on which the UK car scrappage scheme was based.
Why Co2 Emissions from Cars Can and Should be Reduced
With the transport sector growing rapidly in terms of its carbon emissions output, opportunities like the car scrappage scheme will be sorely missed; there is something of an irony surrounding the problem of carbon emissions in cars, as the opportunity for reduction is so large, yet the climate change problems in the industry are so great.
Tangible and practical changes can be made, though; buying cars with smaller engines, or better, with alternative fuel source, using cars less, and cycling or relying more on public transport, where emissions can be divided.
The UK is heavily reliant on road transport, like many parts of the world. But a reduction of its effect on climate change does not have to end that reliance.
