MPs say car ownership not compatible with decarbonisation

[alfaman]

mickytruelove said:

what the hell is Qatar up to ?

All the Gulf states produce a lot of carbon.

Possibly a combination of AC, desalination plants, driving big engined cars (cheap petrol) - and maybe construction has an impact (?)

Bahrain (previous home) not on the list ... probably similar per head to UAE or Oman

[RobDickinson]

High concentration living high tech in a place where you need lots of water and cooling... and have plenty of money to solve your problems..

[anonymous-user]

Surely when tovarishch Corbyn and McDonnell are installed they will sort this matter out

A car will probably become something that important people have such as MP's and advisers. Other people will need to undergo a points system based test to see if they really do require one.
Perhaps a savings stamps scheme could be instigated via somewhere like the co-op stores

[321boost]

RobDickinson said:

Just sold my 2 cars, and,my computer is powered by renewable. hth.

Prove it. Show us how great you are.

[RobDickinson]

no.

[Bibbs]

alfaman said:

All the Gulf states produce a lot of carbon.

Possibly a combination of AC, desalination plants, driving big engined cars (cheap petrol) - and maybe construction has an impact (?)

Bahrain (previous home) not on the list ... probably similar per head to UAE or Oman

It probably includes oil production. Like Australia would include export of coal and gas. Combined with a low population.

So they take the 'carbon hit' to provide steel, petrol etc to the rest of the world.

[menousername]

I thought Mexico was supposed to be one of the most congested and polluted countries going.

Presumably they have more air conditioning than Australia etc, refine oil somewhere, have more urban cities, and have clogged up roads with cars in jams churning out emissions

Surprised by that

[mike74]

I've been driving a ''stop gap'' Citroen c1 for the last 18 months and the intention was always to get another performance car again
(although the c1 is so cheap to run I'd now keep it and just have a weekend/fun car).

Although any performance car wouldn't be bought as an ''investment'' I also don't want to spend £15k-£30k on something that up until now at least, has held it's value up very well (think older Elise/Exige/imprezas/evo's etc) only to find that the values of these kind of currently desirable performance ice cars are suddenly going to take a massive hit in the next few years.

These kind of cars are already at ''bubble'' prices now imo, all this talk of decarbonisation, EV and car ownership in general makes me worried that this bubble is going to deflate considerably

[s2art]

s2art said:

RobDickinson said:

Just sold my 2 cars, and,my computer is powered by renewable. hth.

And what difference will it make? (show your maths)

[RobDickinson]

s2art said:

s2art said:

RobDickinson said:

Just sold my 2 cars, and,my computer is powered by renewable. hth.

And what difference will it make? (show your maths)

Heres the thing. If no one does anything we're in deep st.

Individually my changes won't do much but apart from that and voting that's mostly personally I can do.

If everyone made relatively small changes it would have a huge impact.

[Evanivitch]

mickytruelove said:

what the hell is Qatar up to ?

Shipping. It's based on data that allows for the CO2 of manufactured goods to be assigned to the consumer (hence western countries having a higher per capita consumption), one exception in the data is shipping fuel. A similar chart shows Gibraltar also having a high per capita consumption and several island nations.

[biggles330d]

Equus said:

I live in a (very) rural area too.

We have plenty of Tesla drivers around, though, and as it happens the nearest Tesla supercharger (at the village hall, in the next village) is closer than the nearest shop or petrol filling station for me.

It's actually much easier to install EV charging stations than it is to build a petrol station, because their requirements in terms of Planning Permission are negligible.

And I assume that you have electricity, even in deepest, darkest Wiltshire?

The range/infrastructure argument is a complete red herring, if we have the political will to make it happen.

I also live in a rural area - 6 miles to the nearest stop sort of rural, and I get along just fine with my i3s. Range is fine, rural property with driveway so I have a charger installed on the drive.
On the very odd occasion I have to go hundreds of miles in a day I do take 'the other car', but it's largely resigned to being a hobby and tip car and sits in the garage for weeks on end as 99% of journeys for work and leisure are perfectly fine in the i3 with range to spare.

I wouldn't agree that we have to abandon cars for many of the reasons you say - the twice weekly bus for me is as good as useless. Plus, I have some real reservations about the unintended consequences of finding and disposing of all those resources to make batteries, but as with energy supply, it's probably sensible to find some blend of electric, hydrogen and oil-based fuel. And a lot more walking and cycling and public transport where it really makes sense, which is mainly in the towns and cities.

[biggles330d]

Gecko1978 said:

driverless tech at level 5 will reduce congestion by virtue of being more efficient... .

Really? I saw a presentation of a study recently that was looking at autonomous cars and the conclusion was that the greater shift you'd find was people getting out of 'mass' public transport to travel in the much more pleasant environment of their own space. Sure, you'd get some shift from driven car to autonomous car (but its still a car, right?), but congestion would go through the roof as you'd remove the consolidation effect of the bus or train. Plus all these empty autonomous vehicles have to reposition to the next booking - during commuter times that's a lot of capacity all going one way and empty back out again.

It challenged quite a few myths about them being a congestion busting silver bullet. All as yet unproven of course, but the point was careful what you wish for as once it's here you'll never get it back in the bottle.

[Digga]

RobDickinson said:

s2art said:

s2art said:

RobDickinson said:

Just sold my 2 cars, and,my computer is powered by renewable. hth.

And what difference will it make? (show your maths)

Heres the thing. If no one does anything we're in deep st.

Individually my changes won't do much but apart from that and voting that's mostly personally I can do.

If everyone made relatively small changes it would have a huge impact.

But everyone will not and, as that graph proves, if you are already in a nation that's not in the top handfull of polluters, you are pissing into your own wind turbine.

[RobDickinson]

So everyone sits around in a Mexican stand-off pointing fingers whilst the world burns?

We DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT.

[powerstroke]

RobDickinson said:

So everyone sits around in a Mexican stand-off pointing fingers whilst the world burns?

We DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT.

I've got some magic beans for you ...

[Jasandjules]

All predicated on the incorrect CO2 will kill us all bull***t...

[John145]

RobDickinson said:

So everyone sits around in a Mexican stand-off pointing fingers whilst the world burns?

We DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT.

The best thing we can do is commercialise advanced technologies as quickly as possible that help decarbonise. Stopping economic activity is counter to this.

[RobDickinson]

John145 said:

The best thing we can do is commercialise advanced technologies as quickly as possible that help decarbonise. Stopping economic activity is counter to this.

Doing that too, my model 3 turns up in a few weeks

[Digga]

RobDickinson said:

So everyone sits around in a Mexican stand-off pointing fingers whilst the world burns?

We DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT.

No one can possibly know that.

I also have an alternative suspicion, if you really want something to PANIC about, which is it's already too late. Especially with what those wkpuffins are doing to the Amazon now.