How’s that green economic recovery going, I wonder?
In 2020, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advanced the date on which the U.K. would ban the sale of new internal-combustion-engine cars from 2040 to 2030. There was no particular reason for this, other than Johnson’s vanity and a desire to bolster his green credentials ahead of Britain hosting the COP 26 climate jamboree in 2021, but that was enough. Oh yes, looking at an issue of the Guardian from that time, there is also a reference to this reckless acceleration being “one of a string of new clean energy policies to help trigger a green economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.”
How’s that green economic recovery going, I wonder?
In September 2020, Johnson upped his bluster. Shifting the date to 2030 was part of a “green industrial revolution,” which also included transforming Britain into “the Saudi Arabia of Wind.”
In September this year, the country’s latest Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, pushed the ban of new traditional-car sales to 2035, bringing the U.K. in line with the EU and, at first glance, seemingly recognizing that Britain was in no shape to cope with the 2030 time limit. This apparent gesture to reality was celebrated by some, but condemned by Big Climate, Big Climate’s captive automakers, and the usual rent seekers. For all their hysteria, however, they had no real cause for complaint. Moving the deadline to 2035 was one thing, but what mattered more was the government’s “pathway” to the ban.
On September 23, I wrote that it would be “nuts to extend the ban’s deadline to 2035 (to be clear, it’s nuts to have any mandate), and then not extend the phase-in” (the pathway) that came with it.
Five days later, the government opted for nuts, or something close to it, announcing a pathway that reduced the extension to 2035 to little more than a gesture designed to deceive the electorate:
The zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate unveiled today means the country will have the most ambitious regulatory framework for the switch to electric vehicles (EVs) in the world. This requires 80% of new cars and 70% of new vans sold in Great Britain to be zero emission by 2030, increasing to 100% by 2035. . . .
The mandate sets minimum annual targets, starting with a requirement for 22% of new cars sold in 2024 to be zero emission, as originally proposed. This will rise each year up to 100% by 2035. . . .
More details here. In 2025, the figure rises to 28 percent, in 2026 to 33 percent, in 2027 to 38 percent, and up and up it goes.
And if car makers fail to meet the central planners’ targets?
Automakers that don’t comply have to pay up to £15,000 ($18,300) for each vehicle they miss targets by.
Ross Clark, writing in the Spectator (November 6):
What’s the likelihood of car makers hitting these targets? Not very high, to judge by the car sales figures for October published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) this morning. Last month, sales of pure electric cars were up 20 per cent compared with October 2022. The trouble is, sales of petrol cars and hybrids rose sharply, too, so that the proportion of sales made up by pure electric cars has hardly shifted: only 15.6 per cent of new cars were pure electric, up modestly from 14.8 per cent in October 2022. . . .
It is hard to imagine that manufacturers will want to take the hit of hefty fines. If they cannot persuade enough of us of the merits of their electric range, the simplest answer will be for them to withdraw their petrol cars from the market. Ford has already done this by discontinuing the Fiesta, which for many years was Britain’s best-selling car. That will result in a lot less choice for motorists, and may end up with some manufacturers withdrawing from the UK market altogether.
Compulsion, unrealistic targets, and reduced consumer choice. Tory central planning looks more and more like its Soviet predecessor. It will end just as well.