Diesel scrappage schemes ‘unlikely to do much’ for air quality, says RAC Foundation

Scrappage schemes aimed at removing the oldest and most polluting diesel vehicles from the roads would be unlikely to have a significant impact on air quality, according to the RAC Foundation.

The RAC Foundation has warned that such a scheme would have to be on a ‘huge scale’ to cause any meaningful reductions in emissions.

The scrappage idea was proposed by think tank Policy Exchange last month and echoed the scheme rolled out in 2009/10, giving buyers an incentive to buy a new, and less polluting, car.

The RAC Foundation suggests that, under such a scheme, around 400,000 of the oldest diesel cars could be taken off the road at a cost of around £800 million between the government and manufacturers.

Its analysis claims this would lead to a 1.3 per cent reduction in total NOx emissions, if the scrapped cars were replaced with the latest Euro 6 diesel models and driven the same distance as those scrapped.

However, the RAC Foundation also cautions that this kind of scheme could lead to an annual increase of around 300 tonnes of NOx if the new Euro 6 vehicles were driven the same amount as other Euro 6 diesels being sold. It also cautions that it would hard to target these schemes at cars being used in urban areas, where poor air quality is of the greatest concern.

Instead of investing ins scrappage schemes, Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, suggests that money may be better spent elsewhere, for example making sure that infrastructure is in place to support plug-in electric vehicles.

He said: “The big problem is that not only have the oldest diesel cars failed to live up to official environmental standards, so too have many more recent ones. So a scrappage scheme could cost hundreds of millions of pounds and barely dent the problem.

“There needs to be a big drive to get more people, and fleet buyers, to commit to ultra-green motoring and that means government subsidies must remain in place to close the price gap that still exists between vehicles powered by alternative fuels and those driven by fossil fuels.

“Already some manufacturers have warned that the still fragile electric car market could be killed off if subsidies are withdrawn too hastily.

“As the government has itself recognised in its plan for clean air zones, the most pressing issue is what to do about commercial vehicles. A major proportion of the emissions of NOx from road transport come from heavy duty vehicles such as lorries buses and taxis.”

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