Electric cars are part of the answer, but only part. The first step has to be reducing energy demand overall. Homes that are insulated properly ( and for new homes, designed properly) to cut down on energy demand. Real options for public transport and active transport, that reduce the distances driven in private cars, fossil fuel or electric. And an economy that is for more localised, so doesn’t demand the huge transportation of people and materials that goes on now. Then yes, electrification of everything that is fossil based now. Space heating, with solar thermal and geothermal, and the electrification of our transport fleet, trains and cars. Really, there should not be a single new roof built in the country from this moment on, without solar panels.
In terms of costs, carbon most definitely has to be priced, to give a competitive advantage to zero- carbon approaches to everything. The proceeds of this tax will be used initially to invest in alternatives, but most importantly will be returned as dividends to UK residents in a fashion that insulates the least -well off among us from seeing their own already precarious finances get any worse. This is why we can’t only talk about one policy at a time , because we need a holistic rebalancing away from carbon and inequality, and towards clean and socially just.
And, as regards VAT on your solar panels, certainly, solar panels are an absolute necessity, and we would be eliminating VAT on pollution – reducing goods, Reduce energy usage, clean up energy production with huge investment in renewable, and use the tax and benefit system to support this shift and make sure it is not the poor who will pay for it.
Martha Green
Martha Green - Green Party 