The UK government has reviewed the rules for its petrol and diesel vehicle sale ban and decided that posh cars will be exempt. Luxury vehicles McLaren, Aston Martin and Bentley will no longer have to follow the electric vehicle (EV) mandate and can continue making fossil fuel chugging cars beyond 2030.
As long as rich people are doing it, it’s fine to drop the EV mandate
A Labour government statement said that they are “preserving some of the UK car industry’s most iconic jewels for years to come”. But that doesn’t add up given these companies can make electric versions of such cars and are in the process of doing so. It looks like Labour are actually feeling gooey eyed over posh people’s toys and in the process ensuring it’s one rule for the rich and one for the rest.
What’s more, Aston Martin and McLaren have previously engaged in lobbying activities with their own cooked ‘evidence’. These companies previously used a sock puppet public relations (PR) firm to lobby the former Boris Johnson-government against EVs. The ‘study’ used found that EVs were not quite so green, but the PR firm behind it was registered to the wife of a director of Aston Martin.
More broadly, multiple reports show that rich people generally emit more CO2 than normal income people. And for billionaires, they have higher emissions in just half an hour than normal income people do in their entire lives.
A striking example is Jeff Bezos and his two private jets. They spend around 25 days in the air over a 12 month period. During that time, Bezos emitted 2,908 tonnes of CO2, which is more than an Amazon employee would in 207 years. Or, for someone from the global poorest 50%, it would take 2,000 years to produce that much carbon. And that’s before you consider super rich investment in fossil fuels, a huge driver of CO2 emissions. Then there’s a study that found 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of emissions.
Indeed, supercars like McLaren and Aston Martin follow suit, emitting much more CO2 than affordable makes.
What about the energy sector?
While the EV mandate still phases out the sale of single petrol and diesel cars by 2030, Keir Starmer’s government has also further relaxed the rules so that companies can sell hybrid cars up until 2035.
The incoming removal of fossil fuel vehicles (other than some posh people’s) may be a welcome move, but it ignores the wider energy sector. Also Labour inherited the meat and bones of this policy from the Conservatives. So it’s hardly like we’ve finally found an example of the significant ‘change’ Starmer keeps going on about.
When it comes to the overall economy, Labour reduced its policy of £28bn per year of public investment in renewable energy to just £8bn for Great British Energy to ‘crowd in’ private investment. A much more efficient policy would bring in a renewable energy system through state funding, delivering cheaper bills through public ownership in one fell swoop. In 2023, the average price per unit of electricity in the UK was £127 per MWh. A renewable energy system could deliver the same at costs as low as £55 per MWh. Over time, a Green New Deal would pay for itself and remove profiteering from an essential service.
As well as cheaper bills, research suggests renewables with a level of public control delivers lower inflation. A report from Positive Money, entitled ‘Inflation as an Ecological Phenomenon’, has found that countries with high energy security and strong price controls had relatively low levels of inflation during the global crises of recent years.
Gas guzzling rich people and corporations should not be given a break from the EV mandate. Yet again, that shows this government’s priorities.
Featured image via the Canary
