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FTA says bring carbon into the fuel duty debate
Page 6
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CM COVER STORY
THE FREIGHT Transport Association (ETA) has called for the road haulage industry to refocus its lobbying on cutting carbon emissions rather than reducing fuel duty.
Speaking at the F1'A's Cutting Carbon, Cutting Costs conference, James Hookham, policy and communications managing director for the ETA, said the industry needed to put together a coherent alternative to fuel duty, which tied in with the climate change agenda, instead of tackling tax head-on.
"We have to come up with a plan B that is seen as a more effective way of reducing carbon emissions than what [the government is] already doing. If plan A is to tax us into submission, the only way forward is plan B," he told delegates One suggestion was that as a substitute to fuel duty, the industry could propose a carbon reduction obligation to be attached to the stipulations of an 0-licence, according to Hook ham.
The Road Haulage Association has welcomed the proposals. "Anything that highlights what a clean and efficient industry this
is has got to be good news: a spokeswoman says.
Hookham's proposition comes just weeks after CM exclusively revealed that a study by the Logistics Research Centre at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh found that CO, emissions from trucks grew by just 10% between 1990 and 2005, while previous government estimates had placed the rise nearer 30% (`Government's HGV CO, stats wildly inaccurate', CM 11 June).
The haulage industry can expect a range of legislation over the measurement and emissions of CO2 in the coming years. Voluntary reporting of carbon emissions will he launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ( DEFRA) in October, while regulations for compulsory reporting will be in place by 2012.
The government introduced the Climate Change Act in 2008, which commits the UK to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.
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