Victoria's Green Matters - 5th May 2016

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

It was only recently that there was a report about the poor air quality in many of our cities which was causing between 40,000 – 50,000 premature deaths a year. Now there is a further report by a cross party committee of MPs, which has labelled the situation as a ‘public health crisis’, that has concluded that diesel vehicles are the major cause of the pollution and that the government is not taking action.

The committee has found that 97% of modern diesel cars are emitting more toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution than the legal limit. New cars are subject to testing on a rolling road where they may pass the test but rarely match industry figures when out on the open road. (This is discounting any ‘tricks of the trade’ that may have been employed to cause the recent emissions scandal concerning VW).

‘Client Earth’, a non-governmental organisation, took the government to the Supreme Court last year over its failure to act on emissions and won its case but one year on is dismayed to find that little action has been taken.

Sales of diesel overtook sales of petrol cars in 2010 as everyone was encouraged to choose diesel because of its lower carbon dioxide emissions and more miles per gallon; time has shown us that this was short-sighted.

There has been a call for a diesel car scrappage scheme to get old diesel vehicles off the roads and for Clean Air Zones to be imposed in major cities.

Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.