The Committee on Climate Change says that 62% of future reduction in emissions will rely
on individual choices and behaviours12. However, government has not yet properly engaged
with the public on the substantial behaviour changes that achieving net zero will require13.
The 2030 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans (ICEs) is welcome but it is
estimated that we will still need to reduce traffic on our roads by between 20% and 60% by
2030 to meet our carbon reduction targets.14 This will require a shift from private transport to
public, shared and active travel, and to reduce the need for travel. There is also a risk is that
in lowering the cost of motoring, electrification will make mode shift even harder to deliver.
The scale of the challenge is immense. In September 2020 there were 32.9 million cars in
UK, of these 1.1% (348,506) were ultra low emission with just under 0.5% fully electric15.
ULEV sales have doubled over the past year16 but from a very low base. There is no such
thing as a zero emissions car. Electric vehicles (EVs) are carbon intensive to produce.
Decarbonisation of the grid is critical. A key challenge still to overcome is the financial,
economic and social cost of sourcing raw materials for batteries17