West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Net Zero plans are a harbinger for nationwide policies to end car ownership.
The WMCA ‘green paper’ includes:
* it’s impractical on electricity supply grounds to convert all cars to EVs to deliver net zero by 2041 (the WMCA target). Therefore “by the time we reach 2041, a majority of people will not own cars, with most car use taken up on an ad hoc basis through electric car clubs. All other journeys are completed by walking, cycling, scooters, and the use of buses, Metro and trains.”
* in the next five years it proposes an expansion of “low emission places”, building on Birmingham’s CAZ
* in five to fifteen years a regional vehicle scrappage scheme “wherein it is more advantageous to swap a petrol-powered car for a travel pass or CAZ-compliant second-hand car than it is to trade it for a new vehicle”. So they don’t want people buying new vehicles!
* 2036-2041 “there will be no fossil fuel powered vehicles permitted on the roads in the West Midlands, with safer spaces for walking and cycling”
ABD Environment Spokesman Paul Biggs said: “People don’t realise the costs in terms of money, jobs and freedom of travel that they will start to face in the near future from eco-austerity policies unashamedly aimed at the totalitarian control of every aspect of our lives without having any positive effect on weather, climate, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, or life expectancy. The computer model-dependent climate death cult is a gift to a cross-party political class elite that are financially and socially insulated from a net zero agenda waved through parliament without debate or an estimate of the real costs involved. Voters will eventually vent their anger outside of selective, anti-democratic, brainwashing ‘Climate Assemblies.’ We have a Democracy Emergency, not a Climate Emergency.”
Ends.
Notes for Editors
West Midlands Combined Authority Net Zero Plans:
https://www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/news/wm2041-west-midlands-combined-authority-publish-net-zero-plans/
https://www.sustainabilitywestmidlands.org.uk/news/wm2041-west-midlands-combined-authority-publish-net-zero-plans/
