Twenty years
ago, diesel cars constituted a tiny minority. But following the signing
of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, most Western countries, including
Britain, were legally obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions —
alleged by some to cause climate change — by 8 per cent over the
following 15 years. Diesel
cars produce slightly less — but only slightly — carbon dioxide than
petrol ones. In 2001 the Labour government introduced a new tax regime
whereby cars were taxed according to how much carbon dioxide they
produce, a development that enormously favoured diesel over petrol.
(Duty at the pump has been the same for petrol and diesel since 2000.) .......
I am neither
a climate-change zealot nor what is invidiously termed a ‘denier’. But
the fact that there has been no recorded increase in global temperature
over the past 17 years — a period during which carbon emissions have
soared because of the rapid economic growth of countries such as China
and India — suggests to me that we should treat the more hysterical
claims of the Green lobby with caution. But
this is not an area of rational debate. If it were, politicians would
not have given in to the bullying of the extremists who persuaded them
to put the theoretical effects of climate change before the actual and
proven damaging effects of pumping out nitrogen oxide and dioxide, and
carcinogenic particulates."
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