Road pricing forms major part of strategy
The cost of motoring could be set to rocket in the next decade, if the UK's independent advisory committee on climate change gets its way.
A report published by the Committee on Climate Change - an independent body established under the Climate Change Act last year - recommends that a national road pricing system and significant hikes in fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty should be introduced. The committee has also demanded more stringent enforcement of speed limits.
The plans form part of a wide-ranging package to bring down average new car emissions down to 95g/km of CO2 from today's figure of 150+g/km.
"It is sometimes argued that if road pricing were to be introduced this would have to be offset by a reduction in fuel duty" says the committee's report. "From a carbon perspective, however, this would result in increased emissions (i.e. fuel consumption and emissions are potentially more responsive to fuel duty than to road pricing). From an emissions perspective, therefore, road pricing should be introduced as a complement to fuel duty rather than a substitute."
Far from reducing the cost of road tax, the report actually recommends significant increases in that, too: "Fuel duty is a potentially powerful lever in encouraging purchase of lower carbon cars (e.g. a 10% increase in petrol prices through a fuel duty increase could result in a 4% decrease in fuel used per kilometre)."
The report concludes that road pricing could be a "useful component of a strategy for transport emissions reduction, and the Committee recommends that this should be seriously considered by the Government."
The committee also suggests that a rigorous enforcement of motorway speed limits - which could possibly be lowered to 60mph - as a way of helping to reduce emissions. It says that this could be done either through an increased use of speed cameras or using Intelligent Speed Adaptation, which could potentially enforce physical speed limits on cars fitted with such technology.
The report also advises that the UK ought to have "3.9 million drivers trained and practicing eco-driving by 2020" and that it wants "240 thousand electric cars and plug-in hybrids by 2015, and 1.7 million by 2020, supported by appropriate charging infrastructure."