Campaigns

New Ground 69
Autumn 2005

Sustainable Road Transport

On 12th of July SERA hosted a working dinner with Stephen Ladyman MP to review the Government's progress towards sustainable road transport. This brought together key decision makers and opinion-formers from UK industry, NGOs and government, providing an opportunity to discuss carbon reduction policies including Biofuels, Vehicle Excise Duty and vehicle labelling, issues surrounding Government grant funding for cleaner vehicles, and Road User Charging.

One of the key topics discussed was Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). VED already has a sliding scale based on carbon emissions: however the difference between the top and bottom VED bands is less than £100 a year. SERA is campaigning for this difference to be increased, so that gas-guzzlers pay more, and low-carbon cars pay less.

In the longer-term Road User Charging may be introduced - and SERA is pushing Government to ensure that road pricing, if introduced, delivers carbon reductions as well as congestion benefits - for example by implementing a higher road price mileage rate for "gas guzzling cars" and a lower rate for cleaner, less polluting vehicles.

A more positive recent development is the introduction of vehicle labelling for new cars: this "traffic light" label based on carbon emissions (similar to fridge labels) will offer consumers more information on the environmental performance of cars.

Another topic discussed was the Biofuels directive, which could provide the necessary push for European countries to promote lower-carbon alternatives to petrol and diesel.