UK rejects EU call for city centre ban on petrol cars

[Gerald]

The UK has rejected proposals from the EU which call for a ban on petrol and diesel cars from city centres by 2050.

The European Commission said phasing out "conventionally fuelled" cars from urban areas would cut reliance on oil and help cut carbon emissions by 60%.

But UK Transport Minister Norman Baker said it should not be "involved" in individual cities' transport choices.

"We will not be banning cars from city centres anymore than we will be having rectangular bananas," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566

Note: 28 March 2011 Last updated at 13:42 GMT

[TarJak]

Top Gear FTW!

[Gerald]

EU, busybody too often, so that the UK does not want a ban are several reasons for it and the EU is already so bureaucratic presented to them in many cases no basis for its statement

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Top Gear FTW!

HA! that was my first thought... I can't wait for Clarkson's view on this!

[STEED]

What the hell do I care, I've be too bloody old or dead to give a damn.

Bring it on.

[Feuer Frei!]

2050? Realistic?
And why not?
Just because the Poms don't want to, so what?

[jumpy]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

2050? Realistic?
And why not?
Just because the Poms don't want to, so what?

Try building the infrastructure required to support business and peoples homes and access to city centres over here and see how far you get - quite apart from the total lack of any money to complete such projects, the whole way the city economy works currently is just not compatible with pie in the sky ideals such as this.

Plus there's the 'way things are done' ...I'd quite like to work from home; I have all the facilities to manage working from home as a draughtsman, but this will never happen. Reason being, most companies, and bosses for that matter, just wouldn't do it, never mind the saving they'd make on office rental space and a myriad other costs associated with having employees travelling to and working from a central building somewhere, they just wouldn't go for it.

Environmental issues and their solutions for the conurbation are much more socially complex than an arbitrary benchmark for reducing emissions, issued by a bunch of overpaid eurocrats.
Better off talking to china first. No matter what everyone else does in regards to reducing carbon emissions, it'll be a complete waste of time on a golabal scale (and that's really the only scale that matters here) if the chinese and other rapidly developing industrial nations follow the path we made, before things like global warming were even heard of. This, of course, brings the inevitable 'well you built all of your industry and manufacturing the cheap and dirty way, so why should we have to do it any differently, and importantly, more costly than you?' I'm sure some countries would view such strictures as a means of keeping them down on the world stage and not as a means to reduce whatever climate change is happening.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by STEED

What the hell do I care, I've be too bloody old or dead to give a damn.

Bring it on.

Yes,you and David C can solved this

[STEED]

Bomb the EU Parliament problem solved.