Petrol car ban will not achieve transport decarbonisation on its own

The focus on electric vehicles (EVs) to achieve transport’s contribution to the UK’s emissions reduction target has been branded as “delusional” by an academic.

Professor Jillian Anable, chair in transport and energy at the University of Leeds warned, against over-reliance on the government’s 2030 ban sales of non-electric cars and vans in order to achieve its transport decarbonisation targets.

She told an event on the government’s upcoming transport decarbonisation plan, organised by the Energy and Climate Information Unit, that while the sale of internal combustion engine cars and vans is due to be phased out by 2030, heavily emitting SUVs (sports utility vehicles) sold during the next decade will still be on the roads until the 2040s.

Adding that SUVs are outselling EVs and should be banned immediately, Anable said: “EVs will be the focus of transport decarbonisation but the focus is delusional.”

“Even if we really go for it with EVs and have 100 per cent pure battery vehicles from 2030, we still need to reduce the distance travelled by cars by a fifth between now and 2020.”

She said this level of reduction, which is roughly equivalent to the cuts during lockdown, will need to be maintained until the 2040s.

Anable added that this rate of reduction had never happened anywhere, even in cities like Zurich and Amsterdam, which have succeeded in stemming increase in car use rather than cutting actual levels.

“We can have as many bus and cycling strategies as you want but if we don’t have a car reduction target and take away road space from cars, not have road building and pricing to make other modes more competitive, we will have more of everything and won’t have reduction in car use.

“We will blow the budget and we will fail.”

She also said that the government cannot rely on engineering solutions to decarbonise transport but must make policy choices, such cutting back its planned road building programme.

But speaking at the same event, Nick Fletcher, Conservative MP for Don Valley said that drivers will need to be brought on board with changes to motoring.

Edmund King OBE, president of the AA, said fears about so called “range anxiety” due to gaps in charging infrastructure provision are exaggerated because most car journeys tend to take place over “quite short distances”.

He said: “No one drives until the tank is empty. The majority of journeys are under 10 miles with the big drive to the Lake District or Cornwall once per year.”

While there are still problems to be addressed with charging infrastructure, King said that the “majority” of people will charge at home.