Oh, good. :(

[GBMUD]

Here. It is, IMHO, only a matter of time before there have been enough calls for tax increases to make it inevitable. My quad fits the opposite category. It is new enough to be classified by CO2 output and is, in all other respects, a car but, rather than the government putting it in the £0 rate duty category, it costs me £110/year - the same as Sandbag's car. Nobody seems to be campigning for a change there.

Chris

[Les Brock]

Yep,

Seems that way, fupp's me off as I need the Disco to pull the Pikey van anything smaller won't pull it

When will realise that its not "JUST" 4x4's its anything with a high Co2 emmission, they'll all agree, then realise they've shot themselves in the foot with their BMW

Hopefully it will apply to new vehicles and not older ones which will have highr emmission anyway.....

For My impending SVA I have to supply manufacturer's evidence of when the engine was manufactured so they can test it to the emmissions applicable then, If I can't then it will be tested to the latest ideals

[FridgeFreezer]

Don't see how they could apply this retrospectively to cars that had no "official" CO figures from the manufacturers when they were built - guess they'll stick to engine size for those.

Les - your engine number will prove date of manufacture, surely?

I have no real problem with making people pay more for vehicles with higher emissions, sometimes it's the only way you can make the masses think about what they buy. Manufacturers will find ways round any legislation anyway, they always do.

[pigster]

well I thought I had got away with it rather well... with 175 pounds.. for a year... (yikes) but the other half in her MX5 is paying £190..

smaller engine (1.8) petrol.. and only 2 wheel drive (rear) which is so much fun to drive... (compared to slow landy's )

[SiWhite]

The whole issue is like putting a plaster on a broken leg.

There's no weight given to older vehicles which, although having higher emmissions per mile, have saved TONNES of CO2 by virtue of the fact that they're still on the road, and not scrapped and replaced with a new eurobox every 10 years. The way I see it, the Government owes ME money for keeping my 22 year old vehicle on the road and for not buying a new car every year or two.

The Government has a serious bee in it's bonnet about 4x4s - are they going to tax the 4x4 Fiat Panda at the same rate as a new SUV?

Madness....It wouldn't be like this if I was in charge...!

[geoffbeaumont]

The Government has a serious bee in it's bonnet about 4x4s - are they going to tax the 4x4 Fiat Panda at the same rate as a new SUV?

I'm not sure the government was to blame this time? Hard to say without reading the report unfiltered by the media. Radio 2 this morning said the report called for high taxes specifically on 4x4s, but the article on the BBC website just says vehicles with high emissions.

[GBMUD]

Hopefully it will apply to new vehicles and not older ones which will have highr emmission anyway.....

I guess it will. Remember though, today's new car is tomorrow's old one. In other words, the next Landrover you buy as a tow car may come with an £1800/year tax bill - even if you only drive 500 miles a year with the wagon in tow.

It is not only 4x4s. The media (for the most part) pick up on them as the main candidate for these increased taxes. They are the easiest group of vehicles for the public to identify. In reality I expect larger Mercs, Bimmers, Lexuses (Lexxii?) etc. will also get stung but they do make for such an easily identifiable group. I think that there is some danger, due to media hype, of the tax getting applied to 4x4s and not to larger cars.

The report this morning seems to identify the need to tax the highest producerss of CO2. Now, call me a simpleton (no, not really!) but surely the people producing the most carbon are the ones useing the most fuel - be that in a 500 mile/year towcar or in a 50,000 mile/year sales rep. If the duty were on fuel (Oh, my, it already is!) then the polluters pay. Simple, add a few more pence on fuel and do away with the expensive to administer and police road tax. Add insurance to fuel too, another problem solved overnight.

So, in this enviroment of attempting to reduce carbon emmissions, what about bio-fuels? Where are the massivly reduced taxes given that there is a (close to) 0% carbon release? I wonder how many politicians could describe the carbon cycle - or have any understanding of the whats and whys and wherefors of carbon dioxide and it's affects on the envoronment. Gits. LPG, a fossil fuel (OK, I know, more hydrogen than carbon but still...), gets a huge tax reduction over bio-diesel/ethanol etc.

Ooops, ranted a bit there...

Chris

[Mo Murphy]

I still think we need a revolution ! I'd like to see Blair and his cronies hanging from lampposts.

Mo (who is perfectly serious)

[istruggle2gate11]

but the article on the BBC website just says vehicles with high emissions.

Until you click on the "have your say" button, then you get this:

Are you the proud owner of a gas-guzzling 4x4? Would higher taxes force you to give it up?

How else should carbon emissions be tackled?

If tax is 'the stick', what should be 'the carrot'?

[rtbarton]

Only yesterday the government were considering scrapping VED and introducing nationwide congestion charge.

They're running around like headless chickens.

I have to say Mr Ladyman (gvt minister? for transport) seemed very cool to the idea of increasing VED, and he is a bit of a petrol-head!

Also if I paid £1800 pa VED I'd make sure my vehicle damm well paid for itself by using it as much as possible.

[Zed0]

I think that at the moment we are still lucky. Was talking to our friends from Holland - they pay between €30-€200 PER MONTH for each car - that is why most of them had their 4x4 converted into "commercial vehicles" but the gouverment closed this loophole for them as well. Sadly some of them had to give up their 4x4 (Defenders belong to the most expensive group) because they could not afford them

[pugwash]

of course if they are going to charge you for having a oluting vehicle, all you can and do is get the biggest, most polluting vehicle in the world. if you are going to pay £1800/yr you might as well do it in style!

[jules]

I still think we need a revolution ! I'd like to see Blair and his cronies hanging from lampposts.

Mo (who is perfectly serious)

I'm with you

[geoffbeaumont]

So, in this enviroment of attempting to reduce carbon emmissions, what about bio-fuels? Where are the massivly reduced taxes given that there is a (close to) 0% carbon release? I wonder how many politicians could describe the carbon cycle - or have any understanding of the whats and whys and wherefors of carbon dioxide and it's affects on the envoronment. Gits. LPG, a fossil fuel (OK, I know, more hydrogen than carbon but still...), gets a huge tax reduction over bio-diesel/ethanol etc.

I'm with you there - and not just price but also availability (although dropping the tax would go a long way to sorting that out). I would prefer to run my disco on biodiesel or veg oil, but the only outlet I can find anywhere in the areas I live and work only opens when I can't get to it, so I have to run on mineral diesel (or else run on supermarket veg oil, either illegally or paying mineral diesel rate tax making it hugely expensive). I don't have anywhere to store or process waste oil.

I've also got a Range Rover, which is laid up at the moment not using any fuel at all, but which would be running on LPG - as you say, still a fossil fuel. Driving the discovery gently I get 35mpg from it, the Range Rover with a heavy right foot only 13mpg. Yet they cost roughly the same per mile, due to the tax difference...

In fairness the disco would be cheaper to run if I could get the biodiesel, by about 20% - lower tax would not only increase the incentive but would result in much better economies of scale for the biofuel producers, allowing product cost to drop too.

There's no point dodging the fact that there are serious issues here that need dealing with urgently - but the government isn't doing that. It just seems to be going for headlines and victimising easily identifiable groups.

It doesn't even look to me like the recipe for solving this is particularly complex - just a bit of common sense. I would:

• Tax fossil fuels even more heavily than they currently are
  
• Drop the duty on biofuels and create clear rules on their taxation. Duty to be proportional, as far as possible, to environmental benefits
  
• Make it illegal to sell new cars with warranties that prevent use with biofuels
  
• In the longer term, mandate new vehicles being manufactured optimised for biofuels not fossil fuels
  
• Abolish road tax - it doesn't solve any of the problems discussed
  
• Perhaps use carefully targetted congestion charging to deal with the separate issue of overcrowded roads
  

At present, biodiesel and blended vegetable oils seem promising options. What about bioethanol as a replacement for petrol? Would that be viable?

I think I might wander over to the BBC site and post much the same on there...

[FridgeFreezer]

Seems rather strange that Greenpeace aren't campaigning for any of those things, just to "STOP SUV'S", which of course is a far more logical argument

[geoffbeaumont]

I think I might wander over to the BBC site and post much the same on there...

They don't make it easy, do they

750 character limit, which makes it hard to make a relatively complex point clearly. Obviously just after foot stamping sound bites... Then edit to less than 750 characters, because when you actually submit it their validation decides it's still too long...

[GBMUD]

I just went to find out who my local MP is. Ok, I know I should know but I have not lived here long. It turns out that I may have an ally at hand...

Murrison: new measures to promote local green energy are welcome

Andrew Murrison, Member of Parliament for Westbury, today welcomed proposals by the Government to make it easier for homes to install small-scale renewable energy, such as solar water heating or mini-wind turbines. The move by the Government to change planning rules comes after a Conservative campaign to push for more green energy and micro-generation.

Also recently, David Cameron has made a major speech calling for:

• a level playing field between renewable and other forms of energy generation.

• encouraging local generators to sell any spare electricity they generate back to the National Grid.

• improving and streamlining planning procedures for green energy.

Dr Murrison explained,

“I welcome that the Government has responded to cross-party pressure to make it easier for homes in Wiltshire and across the country to install renewable energy like solar panels or mini-wind turbines. Where the Government offers positive, constructive and reasonable policies, they will have my support.

“But the Government could do far more to promote green energy, rather than giving unfair subsidies to new nuclear power stations. Conservatives want to enhance our environment by seeking a long-term cross-party consensus on sustainable development and climate change.”

Other than that, he seems to be interested in local hospitals closing down and not a lot else. Still, I might email him and see what he has to say about bio-fuels etc. Sadly he is a Conservative so not much chance of his voice being heard.

Chris

[BogMonster]

Do you think that one day the Government might get the idea that people in the UK don't actually LIKE being persecuted just because they own a car? One wonders how long it will be before the combined irritation caused by Gatsos, proposed toll roads, higher tax on vehicles, congestion charging, blah blah blah, gets them the boot...

[geoffbeaumont]

Do you think that one day the Government might get the idea that people in the UK don't actually LIKE being persecuted just because they own a car? One wonders how long it will be before the combined irritation caused by Gatsos, proposed toll roads, higher tax on vehicles, congestion charging, blah blah blah, gets them the boot...

Never. We're a bunch of sheep - we'll just keep moaning and vote the same idiots back in

[western]

There's a really easy way to reduce carbon, just plant loads of trees, OK, they take a few years to get to fully grown but I always thought plants/trees helped reduce carbon levels ----

found this to back up my statement here

Eight Reasons to Plant Trees

Trees clean the air:

Trees help cleanse the air by intercepting airborne particles, reducing heat, and absorbing such pollutants as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Trees remove this air pollution by lowering air temperature, through respiration, and by retaining particulates.

&

Trees become "carbon sinks":

To produce its food, a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide, a global warming suspect. An urban forest is a carbon storage area that can lock up as much carbon as it produces.

more trees could be planted alongside major routes but within a reasonable distance from the road, around motoway service areas & maybe if every person in the country adopted 1 tree or paid for 1 to be planted in new forests around the country, I'm sure it would have an effect on the carbon levels.

Edited August 7, 2006 by western

[Mo Murphy]

I still think we need a revolution ! I'd like to see Blair and his cronies hanging from lampposts.

Mo (who is perfectly serious)

Sorry, that should have read - "crooked cronies"

Mo

[LR90]

There's a really easy way to reduce carbon, just plant loads of trees, OK, they take a few years to get to fully grown but I always thought plants/trees helped reduce carbon levels ----

found this to back up my statement here

Eight Reasons to Plant Trees | Trees clean the air

Trees clean the air:

Trees help cleanse the air by intercepting airborne particles, reducing heat, and absorbing such pollutants as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Trees remove this air pollution by lowering air temperature, through respiration, and by retaining particulates.

&

Trees become "carbon sinks":

To produce its food, a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide, a global warming suspect. An urban forest is a carbon storage area that can lock up as much carbon as it produces.

more trees could be planted alongside major routes but within a reasonable distance from the road, around motoway service areas & maybe if every person in the country adopted 1 tree or paid for 1 to be planted in new forests around the country, I'm sure it would have an effect on the carbon levels.

Well siad Ralph (we've put an olive tree in our front courtyard which is about as much as we can do living on the high street).

Just need to add 'cease manufacture of new cars' which releases far more co2 than keeping the old ones running but guess that won't go down too well with with governments largest lobbiests.

[geoffbeaumont]

There's a really easy way to reduce carbon, just plant loads of trees, OK, they take a few years to get to fully grown but I always thought plants/trees helped reduce carbon levels ----

Sort of - burning fossil fuels doesn't create 'new' carbon, but it releases carbon back into the carbon cycle that has been locked away underground for a few millenia. Locking it up in trees is by comparison a very transient solution.

That's not to say we shouldn't be planting trees, but it's not going to change the fact that we're releasing lots of carbon back into the environment - what it does is provide the ecosystem with more capacity to hold the carbon in parts of the cycle that can't contribute to global warming.

[GBMUD]

Sort of - burning fossil fuels doesn't create 'new' carbon, but it releases carbon back into the carbon cycle that has been locked away underground for a few millenia. Locking it up in trees is by comparison a very transient solution.

Growing and then storing trees on a large scale might be a solution.

Chris

[missingsid]

I think that at the moment we are still lucky. Was talking to our friends from Holland - they pay between €30-€200 PER MONTH for each car - that is why most of them had their 4x4 converted into "commercial vehicles" but the gouverment closed this loophole for them as well. Sadly some of them had to give up their 4x4 (Defenders belong to the most expensive group) because they could not afford them

Talk to your friends in Holland a bit more, the recent ish changes in traffic legislation (Gatso, Variable Speed Limits on Motorways and one I can’t remember) all come from Holland first. The only difference is that the UK enforce it thousands of times worse.

So what ever is enforced in Holland next will be coming to a road near you soon!

If you really want to amuse your Dutch friends, tell them that whilst the Amsterdam Orbital motorway had I think 4 speed camera locations in total, a single stretch of the M25 around Heathrow has around 120! Yep 1 per lane in both carriageways every other gantry.