Incentives
The controversy sparked by Prime Minister Sunak's recent announcement of a change in the U.K.'s policy on petrol-fuelled vehicles reminds me of our family decision 3-4 years ago to think about buying an electric car.
Aware of the compromise option of a hybrid car, we started from the mindset of going green fully rather than considering a vehicle which still uses fossil fuel. If and when we go green, we will go green. Consequently, just before Covid arrived on these shores, my attention was grabbed by an enticing incentive to buy an all-electric car and I decided to make an inquiry. As a driver of a 2006 VW Golf turbo diesel, a twin financial offer that could have saved me £9,000 seemed too good to miss, combining a mix of economic and environmental sense.
Part one was a scrappage scheme carrying a grant of £4000 to trade in the ageing diesel; part two was a £5000 government grant to subsidise my potential trade-in to a brand new VW electric vehicle, an EV in the new lingo. I remember visiting my nearest dealership for a briefing along with all the seductively alluring sales talk. As the retailer had taken no delivery of the new EVs at that early stage, I went home to consider what to do, including saving up.
Following the science
My interest in the new VW EV had been stimulated not just by the financial incentive as much as my wish to heed the scientific evidence about the detrimental impacts of fossil fuels on nature and on public health. I saw it as a responsible reaction to Government incentives for developing our strategy on the issue of climate change, almost like a civic duty, allowing us citizens to reduce our individual carbon footprints.
Still interested, we subsequently chose to postpone a decision on purchase of an EV to allow the technology more time to improve. Our thinking was that assuming Government continues to regard climate change as an emergency that warrants urgent action, we had every reason to be confident of its incentives remaining in place, maybe even improving.
Austere policy returns
With the onset of Covid and subsequent passage of time, the so-called carrots of policy in the form of grants and other financial incentives have gradually disappeared, withdrawn by the public authorities for whatever reasons. As recently as April this year, for example, the availability of no-cost charging points offering free electricity and located in places such as public car parks was withdrawn. The use of electricity from surviving charging points must instead be paid for by the EV owner. Likewise grants to help households to instal charging points at home have also been withdrawn.
Party politics
Perhaps negative emotions of disappointment and disgruntlement are the incorrect reaction to the removal of incentives aimed at promoting sustainable transport and EV sales. We should know from experience of living here that changing environmental policy has happened before.
As soon as David Cameron became leader of the Conservatives, for instance, one of his headline actions was to proudly pin his green credentials to the Party's mast. He inserted a symbolic oak tree as the Party's logo, where it has remained in various iterations a decade and a half further on. His reforming environmental zeal, however, was subsequently exposed (1) with his now infamous instruction to officials "to cut the green crap."
Now, post-Brexit, not to mention the exits of three other Prime Ministers, after Covid19, a cost of living crisis, and with Russia's invasion of Ukraine continuing the incumbent PM has stimulated debate and not a little argument by announcing the latest u-turn on environmental policies. Of these the most prominent change is the decision to postpone the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035.
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| The Times cartoonist Peter Brookes (23 09 23) pillories PM Sunak's about-turn |
Some commentators remind us that this new stance reflects, in part at least, the unexpected retention of the Conservative Party's Parliamentary seat in Uxbridge in June against the odds. To the pleasant surprise of Party strategists, a famous victory was achieved because of unpopularity among Conservative voters of the Labour Party Mayor of London's environmental plan to extend ULEZ, inner London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (an initiative of the predecessor Conservative Mayor), across greater London. Under this calculation the by-election result gives the PM some kind of a mandate for appealing to voters by "reducing the burden" of environmental restrictions.
Infrastructural failing
On the other hand, the current discourse sits on top of growing criticism especially in recent months from current and prospective EV car owners about the U.K's inadequate supply of charging point infrastructure right across the country compared to our neighbours in Europe. This infrastructural failing is regarded as a major disincentive to the growth in trade in EVs.
A recent BBC documentary quantifies the undersupply both in GB and in Northern Ireland (2) relative to Europe. The programme's datasets illustrate that a bad situation across England Scotland and Wales, for example, is almost three times worse in Northern Ireland.
One comment in an otherwise informative account was the claim by Emissions Analytics that "electric vehicles are not a cure-all for our environmental problems." No EV driver would ever make such a hyperbolic claim. If anything, the logical position is that EVs are a significant if small part of a multi-faceted strategy that includes everything from heat pumps to diet in the face of the climate emergency.
My EV
Based on glowing reviews (3) of a particular model which emphasised its battery range and relatively lower price, seventeen weeks after placing the order my new MG4 Trophy EV arrived in Belfast from Nanjing in April this year. In the absence of infrastructure and financial inducements from our green Government, I was compelled to dig more deeply.
To address the problem of the undersupply of charging points and no more free charging from April, I invested in the installation of a wall-mounted home charger. And to assist with economising on running costs, I had a new electricity meter installed to access lower cost battery-charging after midnight.
Made in China
Again, it should be unsurprising, but what now appears like another policy reversal, this time on international trade, has been emerging with more regularity in recent times. Since a Labour Government's promotion of business development with China (including the sale of the British marque of MG to China in 2006) and subsequent promotion by Conservative administrations of Chinese investment in various sectors of the U.K's economy, Britain (followed by the EU) is becoming increasingly critical of China's enthusiastic take-up of the resultant business opportunies.
Morris Group cars, it should be noted, originate in the English Midlands; the new MG EVs bear little connection to their predecessor models apart from the marque.
The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has complained (4) about Chinese-made cars "distorting" EU competition as "global markets are flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars."
Objectively speaking, any buyer of an expensive new car wants to get the best quality at the most competitive price. Westminster's withdrawal of its financial incentives coupled with low investment in charging infrastructure are hindering EV sales in Britain. The BBC Spotlight documentary presented evidence, for example, from the Netherlands where EV sales and public charging points significantly exceed those in the U.K.
Who would have thought that English Scottish Welsh and Irish car drivers who want to own a green-striped EV have to rely on Chinese subsidies rather than on the U.K. to reduce their carbon footprint.
IPCC
Ever since the International Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, was established 35 years ago in 1988 by the United Nations and the World Metereological Organisation it has published regular reports warning the world about the impacts of human activity on our planet. Climatological experts from a wide range of nations provide the empirical evidence, its data-led forecasts becoming more and more alarming in recent years.
The IPCC's first report back in 1990 revealed that the rise in carbon dioxide levels has pushed Earth's 1990 temperature from 0.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to 1.3 degrees Celsius.
Environmental calamaties in the form of raging wildfires and apocalyptic floods across the world have claimed too many lives, destroying land and property even taking this year alone. The tragic signs of disaster have been seen in Australia, Hawaii California and New York, Canada, many places across Europe from the Canary Islands and Portugal through Austria to Greece. To these add the recent scenes of catastrophic floods in Tunisia destroying dams, reminders to everybody of the urgent dangers of lethargy and inaction.
The signs are on our own doorstep too. The State of Nature 2023 Report provides a graphic description of the parlous condition of nature and biodiversity across the U.K. Closer to home the toxic state of the biggest "freshwater" lake in Ireland and Britain, Lough Neagh, is a national embarrassment (5).
More specifically, the State of Nature report (6) emphasises worrying reductions in wildlife. In GB it reports that one in six species face extinction, such as the turtle dove and the hazel dormouse. Northern Ireland, it says, is one of the world's most nature-depleted areas (7) with 12% of species assessed at risk of extinction. Extinction, no less.
The Report demands "urgent action to slow down biodiversity loss and to try to reverse the damage of recent decades...." And yet, sacked politicians idle as our enchanted isle's freshwater is overcome by toxic blue-green algae.
It doesn't make any sense at a critical tipping point for nature, in a deteriorating global emergency, for the U.K. with its aspirations to be a global leader and allegedly taking back control of all of its affairs, to row back now on environmental policies. What sort of signal does that communicate to its own people and to the world at large?
© Michael McSorley 2023
References
1. Rowena Mason 21 November 2013 The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/david-cameron-green-crap-comments-storm
2. BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight 26 September 2023 "The Electric Road Test" Reporter Conor Spackman
3. Irish Times 30 September 2022 https://www.irishtimes.com/motors/2022/09/30/mg-delivers-its-best-car-in-decades-and-its-priced-to-give-its-rivals-sleepless-nights/
4. Financial Times 13 September 2023 "EU to launch anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles https://www.ft.com/content/55ec498d-0959-41ef-8ab9-af06cc45f8e7
5. Irish Times 23 September 2023 Freya McClements "The lough isn't just dying, it's being killed:" The clotted mess choking Lough Neagh
6. BBC News 27 September 2023 "Nature crisis: Ons in six species at risk of extinction in GB"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66923930
7. Belfast Telegraph 28 September 2023 "Report says Northern Ireland is one of the world's most nature-depleted areas"
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/report-says-northern-ireland-is-one-of-the-worlds-most-nature-depleted-areas/a2031004888.html
