{"id":6908,"date":"2014-12-10T17:02:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=6908"},"modified":"2016-08-15T14:09:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T14:09:17","slug":"government-must-act-to-combat-killer-diesel-pollution-in-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/6908","title":{"rendered":"Government must act to combat killer diesel pollution in cities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nissan

Electric van like the Nissan e-NV200 make perfect sense for London — and are competitive on cost, too.<\/p><\/div>\n

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, hit the headlines over the weekend with a call for diesel cars to be banned from the\u00a0streets of Paris by 2020, as part of a plan to reduce pollution.<\/p>\n

In London, monitoring data show that the capital City has the higest levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution in Europe, according to\u00a0Bloomberg.<\/em><\/p>\n

The government’s own figures show that 29,000 people die in the UK from air pollution every year.<\/p>\n

NO2 is\u00a0one of the most\u00a0harmful emissions from diesel engines, and is linked to a range of respiratory diseases. However, when those clever people at the EU decided to focus on lowering CO2 emissions in 1998, they decided to ignore NO2, leaving the door open for a vast increase in the number of diesel vehicles on the road.<\/p>\n

As we’re now discovering, despite their superior fuel consumption and lower CO2 emissions, diesel\u00a0cars aren’t they healthy for urban residents — petrol would be a lot better. A new report from the government’s Environmental Audit Committee says that diesel is now\u00a0“the most significant driver of air pollution in our cities”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0diesel remains the only viable option for most\u00a0lorries and buses, but it isn’t necessarily the only option for cars and vans operating in urban environments. As I’ve written many<\/a> times<\/a> before<\/a>, vans typically have predictable route and\u00a0usage patterns and are often parked up off-road overnight,\u00a0making them ideal candidates for conversion to electric power.<\/p>\n

Of course, the EU is in full-scale denial mode: according to a\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0<\/em>story<\/a>, EU spokesman Joe Hennon claims that the EU’s\u00a0stance on cutting emissions “is and always has been technologically neutral”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Er, yes, except for the decision to focus obssessively on CO2 emissions, while allowing\u00a0diesel cars to pump out\u00a03 times\u00a0<\/em>the level of NO2 that petrol engines are allowed to emit. As a result, around half of the cars on UK roads are now diesel, up from\u00a0less than 10% a couple of decades ago.<\/p>\n

Regulatory action is needed for this situation to change: van manufacturers\u00a0have their hands tied by the current\u00a0tax regime, which is solely linked to CO2 emissions. Similarly, van operators will continue to buy\u00a0diesel\u00a0models because\u00a0petrol alternatives are\u00a0thin on the ground — and\u00a0often\u00a0cost more to tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diesel is now one of the main causes of urban pollution: it isn’t a cleaner fuel, people. Government or EU action is needed to correct the current rules, which focus primarily on CO2 and ignore harmful NO2 emissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[139],"tags":[40,1154],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6908"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9187,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908\/revisions\/9187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}