Experts Warn Ulez Expansion Won’t Meet London’s 2030 Net Zero Goal and Could Take Over a Century
Despite daily fees for non-compliant vehicles, Sadiq Khan’s Ulez initiative has lowered emissions by just 3% in four years. Experts warn it could take over a century to achieve Net Zero emissions at this rate. The Mail has more.
Sadiq Khan’s… deeply unpopular road charge, which has seen protests and violence on the city’s streets, is not a “big story” in terms of environmental benefit, researchers say.
The revelation raises questions as to why the new driving levies were rushed through so quickly.
Mr. Khan has insisted the Ulez scheme is not simply yet another income stream to prop up cash-strapped City Hall and the frequently delayed Tube network and is about the environment.
But Richard Holt, the Director of Global Cities Research at Oxford Economics, said non-compliant cars in London would have fallen anyway because of changing industry standards.
He says the greener type of cars being sold already will have much more impact than any of Mr. Khan’s schemes.
Mr. Holt added: “It’s going to cut the number of high polluting vehicles by about 120,000 or less, out of three million vehicles in London, so it’s a small part of the overall story.
“It will probably have some benefit, but it’s not a big story. The progress we have seen so far is really just because cars have become much, much more energy efficient and much cleaner than they used to be.
“I think the first four years of Ulez, CO2 emissions fell by about 3% over those three years, so it would take more than a century to get to Net Zero this way, which puts the scheme in perspective,” he told the Telegraph.
The Ultra Low Emission Zone, was last week expanded to cover all of London’s 32 boroughs, and carries a daily charge of £12.50 if vehicles do not comply.
The new Oxford Economics report suggested that Mr. Khan’s Net Zero goal is not achievable until 2050.
Ulez has been devastatingly unpopular already but vast resources have been deployed to make sure people are caught and fined.
A fleet of camera vans have already been deployed in a fresh bid to catch charge dodgers.
Worth reading in full.
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The ULEZ rules have prompted studies of particulates and chemincal pollutants in roads and also un TfL stations and trains. The latter have been shown to be at dangerous levels.
One wonders how long it will be before class actions are started for compensation from TfL / GLA for the harm done to our health.
I travelled regularly on London Underground for most of half a century and in that time I developed a respiratory illness. It went away when I travelled less, and with the help of medication. Many others will have suffered much more seripously and persistently.
The entire premise of Net Zero is false. End of story.
Agreed, I find it remarkable that the governments of the west are intent of removing a gas which is absolutely fundamental to life on this planet
I don’t think they are intent on removing CO2. Looking at all of the measures being implemented to ‘remove’ it I believe are to control us. e.g. less driving, fewer cars, only expensive and impractical EVs after 2030, ULEZs, less flying, fewer airports, less meat and more vegetarian diets, more expensive gas and electricity so we are forced to use less, no more coal and log burning, gas boilers and more heat pumps (don’t comply with energy conservation measures then you will be prosecuted and could go to prison). We all know the measures being implemented in the UK won’t make a blind bit of difference to CO2 levels worldwide (less than 1% if all are successfully implemented).
How about they warn that the goals have been set by an international cartel of mayors and business owners based on delusional ideas about a climate catastrophy with the presumed purpose of concentrating power in their own hands.
That’s something that they could warn about too.
12mins of Neil Oliver being brilliant as usual. ULEZ, Agenda 21, migration, the UK puppet government and more. ”It’s never about what they say it’s about”, isn’t that right, Dicktator Khant??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh_8Wh-CSws&ab_channel=TheTelegraph
On absolutely blistering form. So much so that I can’t see GBN being allowed to continue for much longer, certainly not to still be on air by next GE. No doubt there’s a series of Capone style “technical infringements” in preparation.
Ofcom got rid of the marvellous Mark Steyn. I’m sure they have Neil Oliver in their sights.
He doesn’t mince his words, that’s for sure. The problem I see is that too much of the population have been convinced of the underlying premise of all these agendas, namely that you and i and everyone are essentially destructive to planet earth and we need to be reined in. I grew up with the idea that our civilisation, our industriousness and our ambition has improved the world. Basically humans make things better. But the current narrative which seems to have infected almost everyone is that actually we are a menace. The more we do, the worse things are for “the planet” and the only way to save ‘the planet” is by clever people controlling us. With that in mind, I am reminded of how things were in the early 80s. Thatcher’s agenda meant heavy resistance. but she ploughed on and for the next 30 years, her ideas of how economies should operate were rolled out throughout the world, whether people liked it or not. It happened because the majority either didn’t care too much to resist it, trusted it was the right thing, or genuinely believed it was for the good. Are we in a similar situation now where… Read more »
Bloody hell. His blood pressure is up a bit. Nevertheless, absolutely brilliant and bang on the money.
DS members – 12 minutes you won’t regret.
He doesn’t care about facts, it’s about control, and for him I suspect an ideologically rooted hatred of the UK and everything British.
It’s an islamist – assume all of those things as your starting position.
I thought ULEZ was about saving the lives of asthmatics not CO2 emissions.
Control and money
Does anyone seriously believe that Khan cares about net zero or that the real motivation behind the ULEZ is saving Planet Earth?
Methinks its time for a FOIA on expenditures to enforce NZ.
A Mayor who was really concerned about pollution and the health of Londoners would clean up the Underground, which is where air quality is appalling.
It has nothing to do with pollution and everything to do with surveillance, control, a tax-grab and forcing poorer drivers off the road.
Sunak could stop it, but he’d rather play politics.
Seeing any picture of Khan instantly brings on feelings of utter revulsion and wanting to vomit, similar to how I feel about warmongering Blair.
ULEZ is indeed stupid and high polluting cars will gradually disappear anyway, as pointed out.
But ULEZ has nothing to do with net zero. ULEZ compliant cars do not necessarily emit less CO2. ULEZ is an attempt to control particulate and NOX emissions, i.e. real pollution. Mr Holt is therefore talking nonsense, unfortunately.
Governments these days are full of squirming parasites pandering to globalist agenda’s. They are traitors to their own people and suck up the ars..oles of the UN and WEF planet saving scum
But surely it was never about the environment, but forcing people to buy new cars (electric or with the latest environmental certification) whilst enabling a (justifiably) intensely paranoid regime to introduce more surveillance
The Neil Oliver quote: “It’s not about what they say it’s about” fits perfectly with the lying bar steward Khan