photo credit: Nrbelex

George Monbiot says that the motor industry has long sabotaged eco-innovations and that they are now demanding billions to cut its carbon emissions. The green subsidy for car makers, Monbiot says, is just a disguised corporate bail-out.

“Their sabotage of green technology has been both subtle and comprehensive. The film Who Killed The Electric Car? shows how the manufacturers, working with oil companies and corrupt officials, sank California’s attempt to change vehicle technologies. Having bumped off battery power, they persuaded the federal government to pour money instead into hydrogen vehicles, aware that the technological hurdles are so high that a cheap, mass-produced model might never be possible. Electric cars, by contrast, have been ready for the mass market for almost a century. The $1.2bn that the US government is spending on research and development for hydrogen cars - like the €2bn pledged to the same quest by the European Union - is a subsidy for avoiding technological change.”

Continue to read over at the Guardian.

Sir Mark Moody-Smith, former Shell chairman, wants the EU to ban inefficient and gas guzzling luxury cars. What’s so special about this is not that he is a former Shell chairman but that he defends his viewpoint in a most refreshing and social way:

It is a social thing. We don’t say the wealthy can avoid doing what is needed by society.

When we eliminated coal fires in London we didn’t say to people in Chelsea you can pay a bit more and toast your crumpets in front of an open fire - we said nobody, but nobody, could have an open fire.

BBC has the whole story. Greenpeace UK have also covered the statement.