Motoring Alan Judd

DIESEL AND POLLUTION

The passion for prohibition and for lambasting us miserable sinners runs rich in the puritan conscience – and is nowadays nowhere more strident than among environmental enthusiasts. The trouble is, they spoil a good case.

The latest demon that must be expelled from our sinful breasts is diesel, the fuel that propels nearly half our cars and delivers 99 per cent of all deliverables. Air pollution – not just diesel, note – kills more than 9,000 a year in London, we’re told. Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, claims it kills 40,000 a year nationwide. Who are – or were – these poor nameless people? Would they all still be alive if there were no pollution?

The reason they remain nameless, it appears, is because they don’t exist. The figure is quoted as if it represents 40,000 individuals, but it doesn’t. It’s a statistical extrapolation expressed in terms of ‘equivalent lives’ deemed to be lost each year as a result of all outdoor pollution, of which a fraction is caused by diesel cars.

Another way of expressing it would be to say that, without any pollution all, 65 million of us might live a few days longer. In fact, even in central London, only 11 per cent of NOX emissions – the toxin that so horrifies the Mayor and authorities in 35 other towns and cities – are produced by diesel cars. Sixteen per cent is produced by gas boilers heating our homes and offices.

You wouldn’t guess from all these sermons that air pollution levels in the UK are improving overall, or that London, regardless of traffic, will always suffer because of its geography and vulnerability to continental imports. You might, however, guess that town halls would not be quite so keen to penalise diesel owners if it weren’t such a wonderful fund-raising wheeze. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t continually seek to reduce pollution from all sources, including cars.

In fact, the motor industry is more responsive in developing and installing cleaner technology than, say, airconditioned government and mayoral offices. New diesels which meet Euro 6 requirements reduce NOX emissions, even in buses, by 95 per cent and already qualify for London’s forthcoming 2019 Ultra Low Emissions Zone.

The trouble with slapping higher parking and congestion charges on older diesels is that it punishes the larger and poorer portion of the car-owning population who cannot afford new cars.

We were encouraged to go diesel by the last Labour government on the reasonable grounds that it produces 20 per cent less CO2 than petrol and is more economical, thereby prolonging a finite resource. Now that the environmental wind has shifted – we hear less about C02 these days – a scrappage scheme for older vehicles, petrol and diesel, would make new cars more affordable and would be fairer and environmentally more effective than punitive measures. Ditto traffic flow schemes that keep vehicles moving rather than the opposite.

I should confess an interest: I find the smell of thumping old diesels and C02-gushing petrols an olfactory delight. My 1960 Fordson tractor pollutes for England and will long outlive me.

I’d hate to see the old girl done away with but don’t deny that something needs to be done. Just use carrots rather than sticks: willing consent will prove more effective – and cleaner – than enforcement and resentment.