Don’t listen to the Climate Change Committee on car bans, ministers are warned
July 3, 2023
By Paul Homewood
London, 3 July – Net Zero Watch has warned ministers that the Climate Change Committee’s call for a ban of hybrid cars poses an existential threat to Britain’s car industry.
In its latest report the Climate Change Committee urged the government to ban the sale of hybrid cars in 2030, five years earlier than planned.
Industry insiders and MPs have warned that the Committee’s radical proposal risks the closure of car plants and the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs. It would also deprive millions of ordinary Brits the buy an affordable car.
The chair of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group Craig Mackinlay MP warned: “The UK’s uniquely stupid net zero policies is likely to lead to the loss of our proud car industry by the end of the decade.”
Net Zero Watch has welcomed the rejection of the proposal by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and has renewed its call for Rishi Sunak to follow the EU’s decision to cancel the planned sales ban of conventional cars altogether.
Now that the European ban of the sale of combustion engine cars has been abandoned, the government needs to follow suit if it wants to avoid destroying large swathes of the British car industry.
For millions of Britons electric vehicles will not be a viable solution as they are much more expensive than cars with combustion engines. And electric cars will probably still be more expensive than conventional cars in seven years.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Quite right. All the NetZero proposals will be a disaster for this country. Why is it that only a handful of politicians can understand this?
Some clot representing Net Zero Watch on the Julia Hartley- Brewer programme this morning, (sorry didn’t catch his name), said ‘I don’t dispute that we need to steer towards Net Zero eventually to lower emissions’. So even he still thinks that CO2 is a pollutant and causes global warming. What chance have we got if people like him are so ill informed on basic facts?
Every news service appears to struggle with the scientifically established fact that THERE IS NO CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT ALL
Why do we need to ‘lower emissions ‘? You mean CO2 don’t you? Nothing we do will make any difference. No- one is following us. The ‘Paris Agreement’ is unenforceable and is dead. The steady climb in atmospheric CO2 is unstoppable and beneficial. There is no climate emergency. You have been cervically laundered
At least some proper leaders in Sweden are capable of thought. This from the finance minister.”In “substantial industrialized economies… only a gas to the nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive,” Svantesson noted.
Sweden has abandoned it’s aim of going for 100% renewables apparently.
https://www.technocracy.news/sweden-dumps-climate-agenda-scraps-green-energy-targets/
BBC this morning
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66042272
“Hottest June kills UK fish and threatens insects”
“The UK’s hottest June on record caused unprecedented deaths of fish in rivers and disturbed insects and plants, environment groups have warned.
Nature is being “pounded by extreme weather without a chance to recover”, the Wildlife Trusts said.
The Met Office will say later on Monday if the high temperatures were linked to climate change”.
I am expecting them to say “yes it’s linked” because of course everything is linked to climate change!
Yes indeed, I read that this morning and of course they will say it is linked because they are lying little ……..
Deaths of fish in rivers having nothing to do with discharge of sewage into rivers, of course….
The unprecedented deaths of fish in rivers in Devon was caused by discharge of digestate from an Anaerobic Digester. The purpose of the Anaerobic Digester was to reduce CO2 emissions and thus reduce global warming which was causing the death of fish in rivers.
Disturbing insects is now one of the seven deadly sins.
Meanwhile, in the real world, on June 29 a Wiltshire fishing club emailed the text below about the upper river Avon.
The point here is that water levels in the chalkstreams around this area are still higher than normal due to the extremely wet late-winter and early spring. The river ecologies are absolutely fine with this (so long as sewage, nitrates, phosphates etc aren’t poured in).
West Amesbury
Closed until further notice.
We have decided to close West Amesbury with immediate effect, until further notice.
There is prolific weed growth and extremely high water level in the river. The banks are flooded in many places and it is simply dangerous to walk on the footpaths. Wading is near impossible as the water is very high and the volume of weed does not allow many opportunities to find decent holes to fish.
What they’re calling ‘extreme weather’ is normal summer in large parts of Europe and elsewhere. Are all the fish and insects close to disappearing in those countries?
I’ve been watch the Tour de France, two days in the Basque Country.
It’s been a bit damp and the countryside has been looking lush and green, no sign of a major drought in that part of the world.
“The Met Office will say later on Monday if the high temperatures were linked to climate change”. I seem to have read exactly that.
I prefer the following summary of the “case” put forward by the AWG/CC delusionists ( which implies a total lack deliberate intent to deceive ) and apparatchiks ( which implies they know exactly what they are doing and dont give a damn who they harm):
https://watch.adh.tv/cpac-2022/season:2/videos/cpac-2022-prof-ian-plimer
I agree 100% that these oiks need to be very aggressively attacked with facts – for far too long this nonsense has been allowed to gain traction because the principled and factual opposition has been “on the back foot” ( or stumped not attempting a run if you prefer ). I have been doing that for some time – and my pariah status with some becomes ever more evident; reminds me of the moment in “A Bridge Too Far” when the Intelligence Officer who has been highlighting SS Panzers not well camouflaged in the vicinity of the Arnhem/Market Garden drop zone, which Browning poo poos ( at least in the film) is led away by a “Doctor” who tells him he is “ill”. I hope I don’t go the way of Gen. Sosobowski’s paratroopers…
We lost “our” car industry after Thatcher wrecked it and Blair closed it. What we have now is French, German and Japanese.
But even that is essential and must be kept alive almost at any cost.
“All electric” cars are steadily facing buyer resistance largely because of recharging times, the problem that hybrids solve perfectly. If hybrids are to be “killed” as well as proper cars then the whole private car market will close. What then?
That of course is what the neo-Archadian green idealists want but are they prepared for the huge scale of deaths that will follow as we starve?
As soon as they understand that it will apply equally to them the idea will be abandoned very rapidly. Our job is to make sure they understand that as soon as possible.
Range (and of course lack of normal size anywhere near affordable vehicles) is the primary problem with electric cars. Even if they magically fix charging time, EVs still need recharging multiple times for the same actual use as a proper car with a diesel or petrol engine.
In fact we lost our car industry via a combination of utterly inept managers and Communist Trade Union leaders such as “Red Robbo” fomenting endless strikes, allied to product that in the main hadn’t significantly changed since the 1930s, the A-series engine used right through into the 1980s was originally planned as an 803cc OHV replacement for the Austin 7 750cc side valve.
One week the wheel bolters-on struck to increase their differentials with the upholsterers who struck the week after to restore parity and so on…
All Maggie was to put all the assorted “British this, that and t’other” industries out of their misery.
I remember on the launch of the Metro a BL spokesman asserted “we have found the formula for profitability, we have taken all the cost out of the product and concentrated our resources on aggressive and dynamic marketing” in the same week that a TUC spokesman stated that the Government needed to ban the import of foreign cars because he couldn’t see why the British product had to be competitive.
Put an Austin Metro and a VW Golf in a showroom and compare them, especially with regard to “panel gaps”, then take each for a test drive…
And then the Japanese arrived and did to the car industry what they had done to the motorcycle industry…
Case closed!
If the wear on roads is proportional to the fourth power of the weight of a vehicle, electric cars are causing major damage to roads compared to their ice companions. Is this a major contributory reason for the increase in potholes?
Even if a miracle happens and EVs become price competitive with ICE cars and trucks, they will still have the same problems
*Range – especially in cold or hot weather
*Charging times
*Electricity price volatility and availability
*Weight
*Cannot be towed if broken down
*DANGER of battery
Other than that…….
I am sure some of your readers will have more to add
A couple of points:
I can’t claim authorship (sadly), but this tickled me when I saw it the other day: ‘The Department for Energy and Net Zero needs the ‘and’ to be changed to ‘or’.
Secondly, a friend visited Walton Hall (Danny LaRue’s old place) near Stratford upon Avon during the June heatwave. It has a very large lake which is home to many, many fish. Not so many now as he reported seeing hundreds of dead fish floating on the surface. We put it down to oxygen depletion as the lake’s level had dropped. But later, we realised that the lake was actually very shallow because of silting, and the presence of a huge fosse-septic to service the new hotel – which drained through reed-beds into the lake. I’m just waiting for the local news to claim it was caused by CC/AGW….
Perhaps some entrepreneur will buy the car plants and keep some of the production going making parts and sub-assemblies to keep vehicles going. Spare space could make parts for older models. Yes, I realise if the mentally=ill are still being allowed to run the country they will try banning car repairs.
Theat ever flexible unit of energy, the home, has just seen some big reductions.
https://www.current-news.co.uk/price-cap-forecast-decreases-as-ofgem-revises-domestic-consumption-definition/
Of course it makes our bills “cheaper” since we are switching off because we can’t afford them. More shrinkflation.
Electricity is now just 2,700kWh per home, down from 2,900kWh and 3,600kWh not so many years ago. Gas falls 500kWh to 11,500kWh per home as we shiver: in 2010 it was 16,500kWh.
It’s not only banning hybrids. It is banning ALL normal cars that will kill the car industry. Can the car makers survive by only manufacturing spare parts instead of vehicles that the actual market needs and wants?
Anyone attempted to estimate the amount of CO2 required to sustain the present level of vegetation on the planet? S’pose not but it must form part of the equation.
Further thoughts from the naive:
How can a government in the UK expect to be re-elected if the existing vehicles of private car ownership are progressively confiscated , replacements bear a surcharge of about 30% and non-domestic fuelling arrangements are becoming so incoherent and expensive?
Conversely how can a political party fail to win a general election if it withdraws the program and the penalties of enforced transferring to EVs.
Same applies to the architect of Ulez and the low traffic neighbourhood schemes in London.
Another thought. Are UK politicians assuming everyone still there will emigrate to sane countries? Is this their “solution” to the often claimed “overpopulation of the UK”?
It is extremely suspicious that all political parties (at least those with already elected MPs) are pursuing identical policies to make life worse.
“Assuming everyone still there will emigrate to sane countries?”
Believe me, I’ve been thinking about doing that for some time. But finding a “Sane” country is now becoming extremely difficult…
“Same applies to the architect of Ulez and the low traffic neighbourhood schemes in London.”
I thought the graph of London air quality since the war was very illuminating and resembled a long steep descent on a mountain stage in the TdF; when I saw the video of the pollution of London Underground stations compared with above ground in the immediate vicinity, I wondered ” why on earth are these not rammed down the collective throats of Khan and his ilk, Deben et al, 24/7/12/365 ” . That is a part rhetorical question, but I genuinely think that the lack of balance is allowing a fraud to gain greater acceptance with those incapable of thinking for themselves? Surely OFCOM would not take on these irrefutable data?
Like all QUANGOS, OFCOM do as they’re told.
Time for a cull!
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
Some light reading for the Climate Change Committee — Why Electric Cars Are An Expensive Scam.
Was it Robert Kennedy in the USA who asked the “experts” how much CO2 reduction would be obtained / $trillion in the proposed climate-policies? Surely, this question ought to be the first question asked of the CCC and other advocates of net-zero: an horrendously expensive policy that provides no measurable benefits.
Of course this is not even addressing the fact that CO2 has never been proved to cause significant warming.
JB, the answer is given here in pure straight talking Australian:
https://watch.adh.tv/cpac-2022/season:2/videos/cpac-2022-prof-ian-plimer
In the US Lordstown battery car maker has filed for bankruptcy. In the US, apart from Tesla who have a cult following with the virtue-signallers, no solus battery car manufacturer can survive as they lack the funds from making and selling the normal vehicles that people actually want and will buy.
Thanks, 186no for the excellent link. Professor Plimer is saying what those who post here have been saying for years. His presentation is certainly direct but not misleading: should be given to all UK politicians, as they need to understand that the “science” is not proven.
The basic question still remains “What do the UK, or even the world, get for our massive investment in net-zero.” The answer is all too clear!