We appreciate that the objective of the announcements on ending the sale of cars, vans, HGVs and other vehicles is to signal the need for change loudly and clearly. However we do not agree that the approach set out in the Green Paper for achieving that is the best way of achieving the much-needed reductions in GHG emissions from transport, as it;
- does not take account of upstream -i.e. Life-cycle and Well-To-Tank emissions associated with vehicle manufacture, electricity and hydrogen production
- rules out other legitimate ways of decarbonising transport, which may in some circumstances be superior to zero tailpipe solutions
- fails to address carbon emissions from existing vehicles and those that will be sold between now and 2035, many of which will be on the road for decades to come.
Download the RTFA green paper ICE phase out consultation response, where we propose an alternative approach – to continually reduce to the carbon intensity of fuels, to the eventual point where fossil fuel is eliminated altogether. At some point this would mean that all vehicles, regardless of the date on which they were sold, that are not zero tailpipe emission would either need to be taken off the road or would have to be fuelled entirely renewable fuel.
