Ban on all new petrol cars ‘10 years too late’

THE ban on the sale of all petrol and diesel cars scheduled for 2040 should be brought forward by a decade, climate advisers said.

Lord Deben, chairman of The Committee on Climate Change, said the target to phase out polluting vehicles ‘was not ambitious enough’ and needed to be brought forward to 2030.

He said: ‘It will be necessary to ensure that the cleaner cars come forward more quickly instead of being held back, while dirtier cars are sold by the industry.’

The car industry ‘does not have a track record for straightforwardness’ and ministers must ensure it does not try to avoid regulations to make cars cleaner, he added. UK emissions of carbon dioxide fell by 3 per cent last year. CO2 emissions have fallen by 43 per cent over the past ten years, over a period when the economy grew by 70 per cent.

But the rapid reductions in greenhouse gases came almost entirely from the power sector.

This masked a ‘marked failure’ to cut emissions from other areas, such as buildings, agriculture and transport, the committee’s annual progress report to Parliament said yesterday.