We are not entitled to private cars - Cutting fossil fuels

THE Cabinet row over whether motorists using electric cars might be, along with Michael O’Leary’s taxi, allowed use city bus lanes is reassuring in that it means these issues are on something like an active agenda. 

However, the Department of Transport’s opposition to this modest proposal suggests a dangerous disconnect from the urgency of these matters. We need to grasp every last opportunity to reduce our impact on our life-sustaining climate and encourage the difficult cultural changes we have to embrace in the coming years.

The proposal must be — hopefully — just one of many under consideration about how the destructive pollution generated by transport might be reduced. However, compared to some of the plans adopted across Europe the idea of allowing motorists use bus lanes if they drive an electric car, extended tax breaks, and/or free parking for electric cars are small cheese — if not unintentionally counterproductive in that they support the idea we can always enjoy private motoring in large cities. The bus-lane proposal seems, at best, an interim one, kicking the car instead of the can down that infamous road built on a foundation of politically convenient deferral.