Imagine if there was an industry in Britain that annually churned out thousands of tonnes of carcinogens that scientists found were killing more than 7,000 of us every year. Imagine these polluters were given encouragement by successive governments to spew their waste into the environment. If this were the case, then you would think the green movement would be enraged.
Well, there is such an “industry” and it has taken not the greens, who have remained largely silent about the most pressing environmental scandal of our time, but the Supreme Court to finally do something about it: the Great Diesel Scandal.
Last week, the government was ordered by the Supreme Court to curb the diesel menace, or face multi-million-pound fines. This will, probably, mean the end of not only the diesel car but also the entire current British commercial fleet.
Diesel exhaust comprises a foul mixture of gases and soots containing more than 40 contaminants. Modern petrol engines, in contrast, emit almost no poisons at all.
But squirrel through the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth websites for data on diesel and you find almost nothing.
So why the easy ride for a fuel which we know kills, by groups who have devoted millions in campaigns against GM foods which we know have never harmed anyone?
The reason is simple: diesel has been sold as a “low-carbon” fuel. Historically, diesel engines emitted slightly less carbon dioxide than petrol ones, and carbon dioxide causes climate change and climate change is all that greens care about. This meant that diesel trumped petrol every time.
According to Friends of the Earth, the priority is climate change-friendly fuel. But even if this could be justified (it cannot; today’s petrol engines have almost closed the CO2 gap with diesel), that would still not excuse it. Remember, this is a major environmental menace that kills thousands of people a year and which has given some European cities, notably London and Paris, the worst air quality in the world.
Emissions have fallen considerable in the last 12 years
After all, Nuclear power is low carbon too and globally nuclear power has killed fewer than 200 people, but most Greens still campaign against it.
Martin Withers, Professor of Air Quality Research at Kings College London, told me that the problem is that the Greens – and the regulators – concentrate solely on carbon emissions. “In California there is a 'smog index’ so you get an overall measure of a vehicle’s environmental impact. Here we only publicise CO2.”
It’s all a reminder that being 'green’ often has little to do with logic. Diesel is about public transport, and to a green the bus is totemic. Never mind that a fleet of petrol Ferraris will create far less pollution than a single London bus (buses and trucks can run on natural gas, as they do in many US cities, but here the industry’s investment is almost entirely diesel-focused).
Successive governments have promoted diesel as a “green” fuel for decades. Admitting the whole thing was a terrible mistake, as the Mayoress of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to her great credit has done, is hugely embarrassing.
Company car tax rates, based on (wholly fictitious) CO2 emissions, are skewed so much in favour of diesel that many fleet managers have a “diesel only” policy. It is true that diesel is in Britain now taxed more highly than petrol, but this message is muted by the vehicle manufacturers who have invested hugely in diesel since the late Seventies.
Diesel cars are likely to be targeted under new plans because they issue the most nitrogen dioxide
The reality is that for ordinary motorists the fact that diesel cars are more expensive to buy, are far less reliable and use more expensive fuel massively outweighs any savings. But such is the might of the diesel market that Autocar magazine routinely reviews only diesel versions of best-selling models.
You could argue that the diesel menace is new, but scientists have known the truth for decades. Government reports from the early 2000s pointed out the dangers, but these have been ignored, such is the power of the road haulage lobby which is terrified of any attempt to ban diesel.
If Greens are for anything, it is surely reducing pollution. If London still suffered the smogs that killed thousands in the Fifties, I have no doubt that Greenpeace and the like would be on the case. But diesel seems to have acquired a Teflon coat. Perhaps the nuclear industry ought to hire some ex-diesel lobbyists. They have been doing a sterling job.