Why are certain people completely apathetic or opposed to the idea of tackling climate change?

[PTR 444]

It’s obvious that we need to take drastic action to prevent a 2 degree temperature rise within the next few decades, but it’s also clear that there are some people who are completely apathetic to the idea that we need to do something about it. From my observation, it seems that the majority of reasons for not taking action are down to economics. After all, without the industrialisation that increased our GDP, there wouldn’t have been any additional greenhouse gases in the first place.

I have a few theories as to why some British citizens might not want to take action, although it’s highly unlikely that all of these will apply to most people. Please note however that this should not be seen as a list of the benefits of climate change, and that glamorisation of something which causes serious harm to the planet should be discouraged.

• They do not want to give up possessions (car, boiler etc) that they have worked hard for
• They believe the ultimate aim of the green lobby will destroy capitalism and lead to everybody living in caves
• Measures to tackle climate change bear an additional cost to the consumer
• A warmer planet will boost the UK tourism economy with more people opting to holiday there
• Lower import costs, since warmer climate crops such as bananas and cocoa can be grown in more regions
• More people die from cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths, so a warmer planet would reduce pressures on the NHS
• They don’t care about people living in poorer countries who are likely to suffer the most from climate change
• They see climate refugees as a way of boosting the economy
• They think it’s solely the responsibility of organisations (oil giants, motor manufacturers etc) who have contributed to it in the first place, so feel no need to take action
• Increased profits from oil companies can be used to fund more space research, with the end goal being to find another Earth-like planet in the event that our own becomes uninhabitable

Can you think of any other reasons?

 

[dakta]

The idea of making some sacrifices to save the planet seemed quite reasonable until the whole just stop oil (and associated movements) made it a bit of a turnoff

 

[SteveM70]

EcoNIMBYism

 

[AlterEgo]

The idea of making some sacrifices to save the planet seemed quite reasonable until the whole just stop oil (and associated movements) made it a bit of a turnoff

Most people agree with JSO's end goal, just not the methods they are using to achieve it.

 

[dakta]

Correctomundo, I don't think anyone wants the planet to boil. But now it's unfashionable to admit it
(edit: tongue in cheek alert!)

To be a bit more serious, can only answer for me but a lot of the needed changes are both inconvenient and costly. So it falls by the wayside of day to day priorities.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Most people agree with JSO's end goal, just not the methods they are using to achieve it.

Indeed.

 

[Gloster]

Because people are selfish and stupid: they do not think that climate change will have much effect in their lifetime and they are not prepared to give up any of their pleasures to (try and) prevent something that won’t inconvenience them, even if it will have a catastrophic effect on people already alive. They will cherrypick whatever option allows them to continue their comfortable lifestyle, lapping up the rubbish spewed out by TV channels and newspapers that have a vested interest (advertising) in supporting the global warmers, or Internet pundits who have axes to grind or want to self-promote. It is ‘I’m all right Jack’ taken to the nth.

I think that JSO are getting it wrong. All their demonstrations, etc. merely annoy people and allow their opponents to depict them as a load of anarchist weirdos who don’t care about ‘normal’ people trying to struggle through life (the only time the Mail or Telegraph give a hint of sympathy for the man or woman in the street). JSO are only going to get anything done if they hit big business in a way that doesn’t directly affect daily life. (Ah, my anarchist soul.)

 

[James H]

it seems that the majority of reasons for not taking action are down to economics

I'm sure there was a report from a serious group of economists recently that made the point that taking decisive action on climate change makes much MORE economic sense than doing nothing / continuing to be profligate with natural resources.

 

[Parjon]

After all, without the industrialisation that increased our GDP, there wouldn’t have been any additional greenhouse gases in the first place.
Can you think of any other reasons?

Yes. Futility.

China outputs more emissions than all other countries combined.
Further, in the last couple of decades it has output more emissions than was output since the industrial revolution.

Given they have had access to all the learning and advancements we developed when we didn't know any better, that's pretty galling.

1) people aren't blind to that some countries get an enormous competitive leg up while we tie ourselves in knots
2) what's the point when we are just a drop in the plastic filled ocean anyway

 

[rapmastaj]

When faced with such a catastrophic prospect, against which the efforts of any single person feel practically irrelevant, it's natural to stick your head in the sand. Especially when life is hard and most meaningful climate actions seem like they would make it even harder.

 

[Parjon]

I think that JSO are getting it wrong. All their demonstrations, etc. merely annoy people and allow their opponents to depict them as a load of anarchist weirdos who don’t care about ‘normal’ people trying to struggle through life

Or maybe that's just who they are, and people just see that

 

[Yew]

Lots of members of the climate lobby show poor judgement. The same organisations that opposed decarbonising our power generation with nuclear reactors in the 80's, are opposing new reactors because they won't be operational for a decade or two; newsflash, maybe if they hadn't been so obstructive, we'd be in a better place now.

Furthermore, there seems to be this idea that the only way to make a change is in some sort of Eco-puritanical self-sacrifice. The number of schemes that I agree with the goal, but fundamentally disagree with the means that lots of people propose to "solve" them is remarkably high. I support, say, recycling bottles, but how about we just make it really easy to recycle so that everyone would do it; rather than considering labour intensive deposit and return schemes. Overall it seems like many people are more interested in making a sacrifice to feel like they are making a difference, and thus can sit on their moral high-horse, rather than actually making it easy and uncontroversial for others to make a difference to support their goal.

In the science of behavioural change, there is a framework called EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely). If you want people to move to take electric trains instead of cars, make the trains fast, clean and cheap. If you want people to recycle plastic bottles, make it really easy, put recycling bins everywhere; rather than have people queue up at return-machines to deposit every single bottle.

 

[AM9]

I'm sure there was a report from a serious group of economists recently that made the point that taking decisive action on climate change makes much MORE economic sense than doing nothing / continuing to be profligate with natural resources.

That's true, - the prevailing opinion of climate change denialists is that the do-nothing option costs the same as it does now. Maybe somebody should prepare a fully costed 'do nothing' as it progresses with higher temperatures, for the denialists to chew over.

 

[Sorcerer]

I have a theory that people become less interested in tackling climate change the more the media puts out the doom and gloom stories about it all the time. Obviously we know it's happening and action needs to be taken, but when we hear stories about how we've only got this long left, or about how temperatures in the 40s will become normal, or about these extreme weather events are all attributed to climate change, eventually it just starts to make us feel more and more hopeless. You start to wonder "why bother giving up my luxuries like my gas-guzzling SUV or installing solar panels on my rooftop when the planet is still on fire?". The science is objective and rational. People though are not.

To an extent this is true though, because it doesn't matter what you as a UK individual does when China pumps out twice as many emissions as the next biggest emitter, the United States (source). It might also put you off when you realise that the whole idea of the personal carbon footprint was originally put out there by BP to shift the blame onto the consumer. I know a lot of people will say that we the consumer demand fossil fuels for our daily lives, but really we just demand a service that the fossil fuel companies deliver but can actually be replaced. I have no doubt that a lot of people will gladly switch to an electric car if they were more affordable and the infrastructure was in place.

Finally, as already mentioned, the eco-loonies like Just Stop Oil will put people off the supporting the cause because of how their actions do not make a difference at best and are disruptive at worst. You might think their actions would force the government's hand to take action, but in actuality they will more likely impose laws that restrict the right to protest because it's easier than dealing with the actual problem at hand. The fact is, climate change is real and will take a collective effort to solve, which for us means lobbying/voting for practical policies along with other personal actions such as consuming less meat. But we won't get there if the doom-and-gloom and blame-shifting continues.

 

[nw1]

I wonder whether countries more directly and dangerously impacted by climate change right now will be the ones which see it as a higher priority.

The UK is perhaps seeing only minimal effects from higher temperatures - our heatwaves are pretty transient with temps of 35C or more decidedly rare - with the biggest effects in the UK being our now habitually mild winters - so perhaps it doesn't care as much as it ought to.

Other parts of the industrialised world, including the Mediterranean, China and the US, have been seeing extreme temperatures and devastating fires. Even though China and the US don't have the best reputation on this matter, I wonder if they will act more now it's increasingly in their back yard?

 

[The Ham]

Yes. Futility.

China outputs more emissions than all other countries combined.
Further, in the last couple of decades it has output more emissions than was output since the industrial revolution.

Given they have had access to all the learning and advancements we developed when we didn't know any better, that's pretty galling.

1) people aren't blind to that some countries get an enormous competitive leg up while we tie ourselves in knots
2) what's the point when we are just a drop in the plastic filled ocean anyway

Do you have a source for those numbers, I'm especially interested in how China can in a couple of decades have outputted more than the whole world in the last 150 years (even though they are part of the world and also fall within that timeframe)?

Whilst China does have high emissions, that's almost entirely because it's also the largest population.

I have a theory that people become less interested in tackling climate change the more the media puts out the doom and gloom stories about it all the time. Obviously we know it's happening and action needs to be taken, but when we hear stories about how we've only got this long left, or about how temperatures in the 40s will become normal, or about these extreme weather events are all attributed to climate change, eventually it just starts to make us feel more and more hopeless. You start to wonder "why bother giving up my luxuries like my gas-guzzling SUV or installing solar panels on my rooftop when the planet is still on fire?". The science is objective and rational. People though are not.

To an extent this is true though, because it doesn't matter what you as a UK individual does when China pumps out twice as many emissions as the next biggest emitter, the United States (source). It might also put you off when you realise that the whole idea of the personal carbon footprint was originally put out there by BP to shift the blame onto the consumer. I know a lot of people will say that we the consumer demand fossil fuels for our daily lives, but really we just demand a service that the fossil fuel companies deliver but can actually be replaced. I have no doubt that a lot of people will gladly switch to an electric car if they were more affordable and the infrastructure was in place.

Finally, as already mentioned, the eco-loonies like Just Stop Oil will put people off the supporting the cause because of how their actions do not make a difference at best and are disruptive at worst. You might think their actions would force the government's hand to take action, but in actuality they will more likely impose laws that restrict the right to protest because it's easier than dealing with the actual problem at hand. The fact is, climate change is real and will take a collective effort to solve, which for us means lobbying/voting for practical policies along with other personal actions such as consuming less meat. But we won't get there if the doom-and-gloom and blame-shifting continues.

Whilst China produces twice the emissions of the USA, it should be noted that with a population of 1,412 million Vs the USA's 332 million (a factor of 4.25) the per person emissions of the USA are actually about double that of China.

If the USA were to reduce their personal emissions to half way between where they are and China's (or the UK as both are similar) that would cut global emissions by about 4%.

Whilst some may then argue that against such a backdrop what difference will we make?

That's a fair question.

To answer that the first thing to do is look at what is most likely to encourage people to change.

Someone did an experiment where they have people data showing the advantages of reduced car use, one focused on cost, one focused on health and a third focused on the environmental benefits, none of the had a material impact.

There was however a fourth leaflet, which showed that others were reducing their car usage, which had the biggest impact on car usage.

Now, whilst the two biggest craters of carbon (the USA and China) may have the biggest impact on global emissions, however they're not going to change if no one else is.

By showing the USA that we've reduced our personal carbon emissions from being where they are now (they were noticeable higher at the time we were at that time) and we've still got a good standard of living (i.e. we've not had to live in caves to do so) then there's a higher chance that they will continue adding their path to decarbonisation.

By showing China that it's possible not to need to burn coal to create power it should be possible to become a developed nation without having to go through the process of having steam trains, as technology has allowed certain steps to be missed. If you can skip out having steam trains, what other steps can you also skip but still get to the same end result?

For example China has a much more advanced EV market than we do (over double the percentage of new cars are EV's and the top 4 cars are all EV's, with a further 2 in the top ten and only one pure ICE in the top ten).

Likewise they have seen high speed rail use raise significantly at they've rapidly built their network, which means they are less reliant on internal flights to get around their country.

If we replicated those successes and had a few more of our own, we could further demonstrate how it's possible to have a developed world lifestyle without needing to burn significant amounts of oil and gas.

 

[deltic]

We have become a very short term society, governments work to election cycles, businesses to annual reporting cycles and individuals often look week to week, (fewer people save for major purchases any more and instead buy on credit, the annual one or two week holiday is replaced by more regular shorter long weekends).

Actioning climate change takes long term decision making which we are no longer geared up for. While we can make lifestyle changes ourselves they are likely to have minimal impact on the problem as a whole and while people say they are concerned about climate change any time government proposes action to address it there is a massive lobby opposed to it. Just see the push back on heat pumps, increases in fuel duty etc. Just imagine the media outcry if government imposed a limit to the number of flights you could make a year or banned the sale of internal combustion engine cars with an engine capacity greater than 1000cc or started rationing meat consumption.

Already in this short discussion people have mentioned China having more emissions than us. Well its not surprising because its population is 20 times ours and most of the west have outsourced our manufacturing production to them. So a lot of their emissions are really ours.

It will take a global response to make real inroads to emission reduction and given the state of global relations that is unlikely to happen. So why make personal sacrifices if you see no discernable benefit to yourself.

 

[Peterthegreat]

I think there are 3 questions.
1) is climate change ACTUALLY happening?
2) is most of it man made?
3) can we actually do anything about it?

None of these can be actually proved even if there is strong evidence to suggest they are all possible.

 

[richa2002]

I think there are 3 questions.
1) is climate change ACTUALLY happening?
2) is most of it man made?
3) can we actually do anything about it?

None of these can be actually proved even if there is strong evidence to suggest they are all possible.

This. Also, do the solutions proposed concentrate power and wealth with an increasingly narrower set of people/organisations. If so, I don't trust them one bit.

 

[NorthOxonian]

Just speaking from my own views (I'm pretty apathetic about it) there are a few factors.

The first (and biggest one) is the apocalyptic tone mentioned above. Not only does it make any action seem futile, but it also means a lot of climate activists come across as almost being like a doomsday cult. It also makes me worry that there will be genuine terrorism over this - if someone believes the world is literally about to end unless everyone takes drastic action, my fear is they may do unthinkable things in pursuit of that.

Related to this is how environmental policies are often couched by those pushing hardest for them. They seem very much tilted towards the stick rather than the carrot - "you must make X, Y, and Z lifestyle changes and accept you're going to be poorer". Mainstream politicians do at least seem better at this, understanding that if you want to motivate people, you need to talk up economic benefits like the potential for new industries or scientific breakthroughs.

There's also the issue of hypocrisy. In many ways I live quite a "green" lifestyle - I don't drive, I never fly, I'm not one for wasteful or conspicuous consumption. Too many of the faces of the environmentalist movement seem drawn from a very privileged group who seem to live lifestyles far more polluting than most.

Ultimately, I don't necessarily oppose any action to fight climate change - I do tend to think that the climate is changing due to manmade activity and that this should be checked in some way. I just feel the current way this is being presented is far too "fire and brimstone" for my liking.

 

[AM9]

This. Also, do the solutions proposed concentrate power and wealth with an increasingly narrower set of people/organisations. If so, I don't trust them one bit.

If it takes absolute proof of CC existence, causes and possible remedies (the latter is impossible to prove without doing it anyway), then concerns about concentrating wealth and power - even if it were to be true, will be minor compared with the civil disorder, famine and general breakdown of whatever civilised society there is today.
The more delay there is to effective action, the more extreme the breakdown will be. This is what the do nothing/as little as possible lobby seem to ignore.

 

[Silenos]

I think there are 3 questions.
1) is climate change ACTUALLY happening?
2) is most of it man made?
3) can we actually do anything about it?

None of these can be actually proved even if there is strong evidence to suggest they are all possible.

1) can be proved (for scientific values of proven - scientists will never give you 100% odds that the sun will rise tomorrow); the climate trend is clear from available records. If it were only some of them then the deduction might be wrong, but when the overwhelming majority of the data point in the same direction, you would need to be remarkably foolish to bet against them.
2) is not proven, but the increase in greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane is a recorded fact, and the physics involved has been repeatedly verified by experiment. So it’s a good bet.
3) doesn’t really matter. Something will be done about it. It just depends whether that something is a managed change in our lifestyles or the collapse of our civilisation to the point where we are no longer able to significantly affect the climate. The planet will survive. Life will survive. Humans may not, but that’s the way evolution goes.

 

[AndrewE]

I don't think anybody has said yet that although most thinking people (and the professionally involved) are convinced that it will cause far more harm and cost far more if we kick the can down the road, there is a section of the financial establishment who see big gains to be made out of the crises to come. "Vulture funds" and Hedge funds make their money this way and these sorts of financial operators are currently pulling the strings of more than one government. Rees Mogg is one example of the type.

 

[DarloRich]

Because people are selfish and stupid: they do not think that climate change will have much effect in their lifetime and they are not prepared to give up any of their pleasures to (try and) prevent something that won’t inconvenience them, even if it will have a catastrophic effect on people already alive. They will cherrypick whatever option allows them to continue their comfortable lifestyle, lapping up the rubbish spewed out by TV channels and newspapers that have a vested interest (advertising) in supporting the global warmers, or Internet pundits who have axes to grind or want to self-promote. It is ‘I’m all right Jack’ taken to the nth.

I think that JSO are getting it wrong. All their demonstrations, etc. merely annoy people and allow their opponents to depict them as a load of anarchist weirdos who don’t care about ‘normal’ people trying to struggle through life (the only time the Mail or Telegraph give a hint of sympathy for the man or woman in the street). JSO are only going to get anything done if they hit big business in a way that doesn’t directly affect daily life. (Ah, my anarchist soul.)

Is the correct answer

Interesting that Greenpeace (?) climbed onto the roof of one of Sunak many houses recently to make a protest which got good coverage in the media

EDIT - take a look at the front page of the Daily Mail today: Deranged.

 

[AM9]

I don't think anybody has said yet that although most thinking people (and the professionally involved) are convinced that it will cause far more harm and cost far more if we kick the can down the road, there is a section of the financial establishment who see big gains to be made out of the crises to come. "Vulture funds" and Hedge funds make their money this way and these sorts of financial operators are currently pulling the strings of more than one government. Rees Mogg is one example of the type.

Yup, chaotic times are bumper profit opportunities for speculators who don't have a stake in whichever way the chaos change things.

 

[duncanp]

I think there are 3 questions.
1) is climate change ACTUALLY happening?
2) is most of it man made?
3) can we actually do anything about it?

None of these can be actually proved even if there is strong evidence to suggest they are all possible.

The fourth question should be

Who pays the cost of all the changes needed to combat climate change?

This is at the heart of issues such as ULEZ, banning of new gas boilers and their replacement by heat pumps, banning of new petrol cars... etc.

People may well be sympathetic to issues regarding climate change and global warming, but they simply cannot afford the cost of the changes that are imposed on them by the authorities, with little or no consultation.

 

[deltic]

The fourth question should be

Who pays the cost of all the changes needed to combat climate change?

This is at the heart of issues such as ULEZ, banning of new gas boilers and their replacement by heat pumps, banning of new petrol cars... etc.

People may well be sympathetic to issues regarding climate change and global warming, but they simply cannot afford the cost of the changes that are imposed on them by the authorities, with little or no consultation.

There has been plenty of consultation over ULEZ, there is as far as I'm aware no ban on new petrol cars or gas boilers just a policy aspiration.

 

[DarloRich]

People may well be sympathetic to issues regarding climate change and global warming, but they simply cannot afford the cost of the changes that are imposed on them by the authorities, with little or no consultation.

Who pays the greater cost if we don't try to mitigate this? Let me give you a hint: it wont be your favoured right wing politician telling you this isn't a problem!

This is at the heart of issues such as ULEZ,

ah the latest right wing bête noire - it is funny because when I checked with the TFL website (having seen lots of wibble about how awful and costly the scheme would be) my now sadly deceased oil burning 13 year old BMW was exempt from payment which suggests most sensible and much more modern vehicles will also be exempt. It is almost as if people tell lies about this sort of thing................

( I also note that today there has been an announcement of a much improved scrappage support scheme in London. This is clearly the way to deal with these issues)

 

[duncanp]

There has been plenty of consultation over ULEZ, there is as far as I'm aware no ban on new petrol cars or gas boilers just a policy aspiration.

There may well have been a "consultation" over ULEZ, but that is of little consolation if you find yourself having to pay £12.50 per day and not being able to afford to replace your vehicle with one that is ULEZ compliant.

And there is a ban on new petrol and diesel cars, from 2030 in the UK, and 2035 in the EU.

UK 2035 petrol and diesel ban: what is it and what cars are affected? | Auto Express

The ban on new petrol and diesel car and van sales in the UK has been delayed to 2035 - here’s everything you need to know

www.autoexpress.co.uk

UK 2030 petrol and diesel ban: what is it and which cars are affected?​

New conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned from sale in the UK from 2030 - here’s everything you need to know​

All new conventional petrol and diesel cars and vans are set to be banned from sale in the UK in 2030. New hybrids and plug-in hybrids will be given a stay of execution until 2035, on the condition they are capable of covering a "significant distance" - a term which the Government has yet to define - in zero-emission mode.

After 2035, the only new cars and vans that can be sold will be pure electric ones, plus any hydrogen-powered cars, that may exist at that point. Second-hand cars will be unaffected by the ICE (internal combustion engine) ban. Petrol and diesel cars, plus conventional hybrids without "significant" zero-emission capability, will still be bought and sold on the used car market after 2030 and 2035.

The EU has announced its plan to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035, although smaller manufacturers are set to be given an exemption and the EU plans to provide further exemptions for internal combustion engined cars powered exclusively by efuels. While there were rumours that the UK Government might entertain a similar exemption for cars running on synthetic efuels, confirmation has since come that it has no plans to do so.

Government help for the electric car transition​

To help facilitate the transition away from fossil-fuel cars in the UK, £1.3 billion of investment was announced in 2020 for EV chargepoints for homes, streets and motorways across England. A further £582 million was set aside for grants to help people and businesses into EVs and PHEVs. The Government is also investing in battery development and mass production, while more money was earmarked for nuclear power plants, partly to help meet the demand for electricity the growing number of EVs will bring.

On announcing the measures, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “My Ten Point Plan will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050.

“Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the North East, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future.”

Buyers are undoubtedly turning to alternatively fuelled cars in great numbers, with 23 per cent of new registrations being EVs and PHEVs in 2022. Nonetheless, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders previously called the acceleration of the original 2040 ban “extremely concerning”, adding that “with current demand for this still expensive technology still just a fraction of sales, it’s clear that accelerating an already very challenging ambition will take more than industry investment.”

More recently, UK car industry figures have expressed their concerns over the 2030 deadline and the new Euro 7 emissions regulations for petrol and diesel cars. Meanwhile, the increasing cost of electricity has made the switch to EVs less attractive than it once was for budget-minded consumers.

Another factor that comes into play in the UK is the advent of clean-air zones. The most notable is London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, which requires owners of pre-Euro 4 petrol and pre-Euro 6 diesel cars to pay a daily charge of £12.50 to drive in the capital, that's on top of the congestion charge for driving into Central London.

ULEZ currently covers a large area of London within the North and South Circular roads. It’s due to expand across the entire Greater London Authority area on 29 August 2023, but this move is being met with fierce resistance from national and local politicians, campaigners and the public.

Background to the petrol and diesel ban: how we get to 2030​

A ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars was first announced by then-environment secretary, Michael Gove, in 2017. Back then, the date was set for 2040 and, after several clarifications, it emerged any new car with any kind of internal combustion engine would be banned from sale by that date.

The shifting sands of future policy saw a consultation launched in 2020 to investigate if a ban in 2035, "or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible” should be introduced, with hybrids included in the proposals. Both 2035 and an earlier date were clearly been deemed 'feasible' by the Government following that review and the 2030 date was announced in 2020, with some wiggle room for plug-in hybrids with 'significant' electric range.

There are approximately 33 million cars on the road in the UK, based on 2021 data. Of these, roughly 441,000 are electric cars and a further 339,000 are plug-in hybrids. In the first quarter of 2022, the UK registered 252,000 new petrol and diesel cars, 81,000 hybrid cars, 30,000 plug-in hybrid cars and 64,000 pure electric cars. Electric car registrations were up 102% on the previous year while new petrol and diesel car registrations were down 11% and 52% respectively.

The ban on petrol and diesel cars is part of a wider £12 billion ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ that the Government hopes will create 250,000 jobs as the country invests more in battery technology, carbon capture, and green energy. The UK’s “industrial heartlands, including in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, Scotland and Wales”, will be key to the coming changes, with 50,000 jobs, and £1 billion of investment in “areas such as the Humber, Teesside, Merseyside, Grangemouth and Port Talbot” alone.

ah the latest right wing bête noire - it is funny because when I checked with the TFL website (having seen lots of wibble about how awful and costly the scheme would be) my now sadly deceased oil burning 13 year old BMW was exempt from payment which suggests most sensible and much more modern vehicles will also be exempt. It is almost as if people tell lies about this sort of thing................

it is amusing to note that someone who has concerns about ULEZ is labelled "right wing".

 

[DarloRich]

it is amusing to note that someone who has concerns about ULEZ is labelled "right wing".

what are the concerns? I don't understand the issue tbh: If a second hand 13 year old diesel powered BWM is exempt then most vehicles will be exempt!

I have just done a UK wide check and I WOULD pay in ULEZ charges in Birmingham & Bristol but nowhere else - in honesty that doesn't seem unreasonable for having an older oil burner ( which I now sadly don't have)


As for right wing: It is all over the right wing press, social media and influencer networks and is being happily regurgitated by the hard of thinking as a crucial anti woke issue. The Tories have drawn the (incorrect in my view) conclusion that because they retained Uxbridge on a wafer thin majority due to a distorted ULEZ issue then this will be repeated around the country.