8 ms·

New diesel and petrol vehicles to be banned from 2040 in UK

58 points by noir-york 9y ago

jacknews 9y ago
2040? The rate things are going they should be considering banning the USE of fossil-fueled cars by 2040, except for some specialized categories. But in any case outright bans don't seem to me the best idea, they should just give advance notice of swingeing environmental taxes to come.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Exactly. But this is still not too bad, as it sends a clear message that petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the not too distant future, so the car makers need to start getting ready for that right now. I'm also hoping that governments who use 2040 as a deadline are also willing to revise it if by 2025 we already have 20% of the cars on the market as EVs, with over 50% of the sales being EVs.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    My guess is the decision was driven from the opposite direction, the government probably asked the car manufacturers when they think they will no longer be making cars with internal combustion engines, then announced that as the cutoff date.
    - 4ndr3vv 9y ago
      Agreed. Its no surprise that it's the same date France announced for the a similar policy earlier this month.
- cjrp 9y ago
  If you ban the use of these cars then you also need to account for some kind of scrappage scheme for people with now-outlated ICE cars. Otherwise you're disproportionately affecting people who can't afford to get rid of their faithful 150k mile diesel in favour of a £10k+ new car.
  - jlebrech 9y ago
    this is where public transport needs more funding.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      public transport is never going to let you go where and when you need to go unless you live in very dense cities. So no, thats not a solution.
      - Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
        The story is about the UK and there are plenty of rural areas in the UK with good public transport: I live in one such and don't own a car.
        mrb 9y ago
        You just did the software debugging equivalent of saying "it works for me" :)
        vertex-four 9y ago
        Ehh, no, "it works where I am and it could work where you are" isn't "works for me" - it's pointing out that areas with shitty public transport don't have to have shitty public transport, that's just the obvious result of bus deregulation and a lack of relevant subsidies on the part of local Government.
        lmm 9y ago
        That's a legitimate response when someone says "this doesn't work and could never possibly work".
        Veen 9y ago
        I live in Devon in the middle of nowhere and the public transportation is excellent. I also don't drive, and I have no trouble getting where I need to be.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Announcing swingeing taxes means not getting elected next time, even if they are the right thing to do.
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    Which is why you boil the frog slowly. Start with a tiny tax. And automatically raise it a few percent every year. By the time anyone even notices, it's been in place for years and the people who passed it are out of office. That's basically what they are doing here, announcing a ban that won't take effect for 23 years. A tax is just a soft ban.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  This restriction applies to all cars not new only as far as I can tell. This is quite different to banning new car sales only.
- 7952 9y ago
  Banning something is much more clear cut. The social benefits and costs can be discussed and we can come to an agreement democratically. A tax system just allows people to continue doing something that is damaging. The government effectively sell the right to abuse a shared resource. Like buying a ticket that allows you to drop litter.
cjsuk 9y ago
Well that's going to be interesting. We're already reaching end of life for some of our older nuclear reactors, coal plants are closing as they are unable to comply with EU emissions regulations and we're basically propping the whole thing up with gas and coal. Every new infrastructure project in this space is a walking disaster of cost and chaos. And to add insult to injury we're doing a very stupid thing and bailing out of Europe which means it's going to cost more to import electricity. So, what are we going to power our cars with? I'm betting I'm on a bicycle again in 2040. Perhaps "peak car ownership" is over. And what are we going to do with all the petrol and diesel cars then? Bury them? Recycling them is more difficult than it looks.
- jomkr 9y ago
  I manage without a car, I have no intention of getting one again. For the few occasions I need one, I either borrow one from a friend or hire one. Granted I do live Bristol, a very cycling friendly city.
  - cjsuk 9y ago
    I am in a similar situation albeit in suburban South-West London. I bought a car in 2006 and it's still hanging on but I have no intention of replacing it. It gets used as a shopping trolley mostly. Literally every use case it had historically is covered by online services now. There's barely even any point going to retail outlets these days as the probability of success is so low compared to online.
    - ioneodns 9y ago
      Your story is atypical given that you live in an area that's a)difficult to drive in (lots of traffic, little parking), b)incredibly well-connected by about half a dozen public transport options. You shouldn't be making generalisations that no one needs a car anymore just because you don't.
      - pjc50 9y ago
        Urban and suburban areas cover about 20m people, a third or so of the population.
jlebrech 9y ago
planning a ban is stupid, they should just gradually increase the tax on it till cars disappear off the roads and fund public transport with that money.
- jlebrech 9y ago
  but motorists are a huge voting block, only someone with a long tenure could ever make those decisions.
- the8472 9y ago
  it worked for incandescent bulbs.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Weirdly, incandescent bulbs are one of the things that keep coming up on the list of alleged reasons for voting for Brexit. I think it's a bit like the Imperial-metric transition; there are holdouts with strongly felt views.
ioneodns 9y ago
Are you incapable of even reading the title?
- dogma1138 9y ago
  The title was edited, on top of the Beeb The Guardian's report from this morning also didn't reference new sales specifically, but thank you for your contribution to combating illiteracy world wide.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't violate the guidelines like this (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14854672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14854672 and marked it off-topic.
sumedh 9y ago
Can a new govt come in and cancel the ban in the future?
- AndrewDucker 9y ago
  Yup. One of the basic principles of democratic government is that you cannot bind the hands of a future government. (Although signing treaties has some of that effect. And there will be publicity around changes which can put politicians off.)
interfixus 9y ago
1997: Legislation to ban sales of CRT television and computer screens by 2020. Politicians. Heartfelt sigh.
- robmcm 9y ago
  I don't think any manufacturer will be (or want to be) selling ICE cars in 2020, but it gives those manufacturers a mandate to push ahead with deprecating ICEs without scaring share holders.
  - phreeza 9y ago
    That seems extremely optimistic, that is 29 months from now. I don't know how long development cycles are in the car industry, but I am pretty sure there are many engineers working on ICE cars to be released in 2020 right now.
    - djaychela 9y ago
      I think they meant 2040, not 2020?
      - robmcm 9y ago
        Yes I did, sorry... getting confused with this and Flash ;)
libeclipse 9y ago
This news made me genuinely happy and hopeful for the future. Hopefully, future governments won't turn back on this.
- zapperdapper 9y ago
  I don't think future governments will back down on this. They see the writing on the wall all too clearly. I think people just won't want to buy ICE cars long before 2040 - they are simply more expensive to run than EVs. I also think if ride hailing, ZipCar alternatives and so on increase in availability, fewer people will actually want to own a car anyway. Personally, I can't wait to not own a car, it's been one of my life ambitions for a few years now. I am very much looking forward to that day!
wooptoo 9y ago
LOL.
pistonhead 9y ago
I know that petrol and diesel contribute massively to the air quality issues we have in major cities like London (where I live and work), but as a car lover I'm also disappointed by this measure and what it would mean for people like me who love our cars. What I'd like to see more than anything is the following: 1. Diesel powered vehicles are banned from London's congestion charge zone from 2020. If you want to drive in this zone you must drive a petrol, PHEV or fully electric vehicle. Government provides incentives for taxi drivers to trade in their old diesel taxis for PHEV or electric. 2. All London transport is fully electric by 2020. Their current hybrid buses are a joke. They spend about 5 seconds between stops on battery mode and then almost immediately start up their diesel engines on leaving each stop. 3. All new econobox cars are fully electric within the next 5 years. UK government invests in providing charging stations at existing petrol stations across the UK. 4. Sports cars and performance cars still use petrol engines. We also undo the "engine downsizing" trend that was started to help meet unrealistic emissions regulations tests. When on boost, small turbo-charged petrol engines use more fuel than their larger, naturally aspirated predecessors.
- jblok 9y ago
  1. This is essentially the same as the T Charge which comes into effect in October this year. Diesel taxis are exempt, which is a shame seeing as they are very high polluters, and also drive around all day long. 2. That would be nice, but 2020 is too soon to be realistic. Unless some of the newer busses have options to operate solely under battery with some modifications. 3. Gov. should absolutely invest in infrastructure. 4. Yes, this. It would be seen as favouring the rich, but there should be an exemption for petrol powered performance cars. Some of the finest examples of human engineering are found in supercars and it would be a shame for them to die out. Tesla is obviously a great example of an electric sports car, but there's something to be said for petrol sports cars. Of course, if all the car companies are working electric mass market cars, they'd probably stop working on petrol high end vehicles anyway.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Yeah, the thing to be said about petrol sports cars is that they have poor acceleration. BTW there are all-electric busses available in the market. Stanford has a fleet of them from BYD, and there's also an American manufacturer, ProTerra. I've been stuck behind one of the BYD busses and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it accelerated.
iDemonix 9y ago
As long as I can keep riding one of my early 90s VFR400s and keep putting fuel in my classic mini or BMW E30, I don't mind.
gargravarr 9y ago
As both a petrolhead and a UK resident, I do think this is moving in the right direction. The internal-combustion engine has had its day. Electric and alternative-fuel vehicles are rising in efficiency and range, and it's becoming much more practical to ditch fossil fuels. The number of scandals that have come to light over increasingly tight emissions regulations shows that there is no future in burning fuel. Hopefully the price of electric cars will continue to fall as battery technology improves, although we do still need to address the problem of emissions from manufacturing the batteries in the first place and emissions from generating electricity to charge them. Also, hopefully 2040 is a hard deadline, and car makers will retire the ICE before that point. That said, I hope the use of older cars won't be outright banned. Even though electric cars are becoming much better performers with improving technology, you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation. Elsewhere, while this is a good start, I think we seriously need to rein in the emissions of EVERYTHING that burns fossil fuels. Power plants are already under scrutiny, but shipping is not - it's becoming increasingly clearer that container ships, which burn low-quality heavy oil in international waters, contribute vastly more to air pollution than a large number of cars.
- pistonhead 9y ago
  > you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation This this this. I think electric cars are great and should replace all non-recreational modes of transport. However, they simply do not compare to the joy and involvement you get from ICE cars. The sound and torque curve is critical for the experience, as is the involvement from a manual transmission and three pedals. I hope that petrol cars will live on.
  - Jonnax 9y ago
    This is 23 years into the future. If autonomous cars take off in that time, the future may be that you won't be able to drive a non-autonomous car on the roads. If that were to happen, it would be the motorways first. I would guess. But it would mean that deaths would be significantly reduced. Found this info from 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... Road deaths:1,732 Seriously injured:22,137 Total: 186,209 casualties of all severities I predict attitudes are going to change where people driving on the roads especially when talking high speed will be banned. If people aren't using petrol cars anymore then you won't have petrol stations every few miles, a full tank will become quite expensive as well due to lack of demand. But hey, it's still a ways away. In my town there's an old sign at the entrance to the square saying that traction engines are forbidden. Today, cars drive through it. What's normal today will change. Who knows how exactly, so enjoy it whilst it lasts!
mysterydip 9y ago
This smells like a "pass something to make it look like I'm doing something so I get re-elected, but take effect far enough away that it either gets repealed or becomes irrelevant so I keep my donors"
dalbasal 9y ago
This is slightly meta, but I'm curious about this concept of legislating for the distant-ish future. My immediate reaction is "cheap" trick, quite literally. It's cheap in the sense that the political/public opposition will be pretty weak on legislation that happens 23 years from now. The authors won't be around to deal with the consequences. It also feels a little wrong to deciding things They will presumably still have a parliament in 2040, shouldn't that parliament decide on laws? Conversely, if future parliaments will decide anyway by altering, we're back to cheap, empty gestures. OTOH, maybe this is a way of de-politicizing.. focusing attention away from the short term, horse trading, and vocal interest groups. Any thoughts on highly delayed legislation like this?
- majewsky 9y ago
  You could use that line of thinking to argue for all laws to be abolished when the next parliament is elected. Laws are almost always designed to be in effect until repealed so that parliament can focus on what needs changing (rather than what needs sustaining). It also makes society more stable and increases legal certainty. If you want to argue against a law that goes into effect 20 years from today, I'd rather base the argument on our utter inability of predicting things.
Aoyagi 9y ago
Well, first UK would have to get rid of fossil fuel power plants, make renewable more reliable and green, supported by nuclear, batteries themselves have to get notably more efficient, make manufacturing of the cars and batteries more green, recharging in under 5 minutes, massive recharge station network, EVs need to rapidly drop in price... yeah. It's a nice PR stunt though.

58 points by noir-york 9y ago

2040? The rate things are going they should be considering banning the USE of fossil-fueled cars by 2040, except for some specialized categories. But in any case outright bans don't seem to me the best idea, they should just give advance notice of swingeing environmental taxes to come.

mtgx 9y ago
Exactly. But this is still not too bad, as it sends a clear message that petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the not too distant future, so the car makers need to start getting ready for that right now. I'm also hoping that governments who use 2040 as a deadline are also willing to revise it if by 2025 we already have 20% of the cars on the market as EVs, with over 50% of the sales being EVs.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  My guess is the decision was driven from the opposite direction, the government probably asked the car manufacturers when they think they will no longer be making cars with internal combustion engines, then announced that as the cutoff date.
  - 4ndr3vv 9y ago
    Agreed. Its no surprise that it's the same date France announced for the a similar policy earlier this month.
cjrp 9y ago
If you ban the use of these cars then you also need to account for some kind of scrappage scheme for people with now-outlated ICE cars. Otherwise you're disproportionately affecting people who can't afford to get rid of their faithful 150k mile diesel in favour of a £10k+ new car.
- jlebrech 9y ago
  this is where public transport needs more funding.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    public transport is never going to let you go where and when you need to go unless you live in very dense cities. So no, thats not a solution.
    - Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
      The story is about the UK and there are plenty of rural areas in the UK with good public transport: I live in one such and don't own a car.
      - mrb 9y ago
        You just did the software debugging equivalent of saying "it works for me" :)
        vertex-four 9y ago
        Ehh, no, "it works where I am and it could work where you are" isn't "works for me" - it's pointing out that areas with shitty public transport don't have to have shitty public transport, that's just the obvious result of bus deregulation and a lack of relevant subsidies on the part of local Government.
        lmm 9y ago
        That's a legitimate response when someone says "this doesn't work and could never possibly work".
        Veen 9y ago
        I live in Devon in the middle of nowhere and the public transportation is excellent. I also don't drive, and I have no trouble getting where I need to be.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Announcing swingeing taxes means not getting elected next time, even if they are the right thing to do.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  Which is why you boil the frog slowly. Start with a tiny tax. And automatically raise it a few percent every year. By the time anyone even notices, it's been in place for years and the people who passed it are out of office. That's basically what they are doing here, announcing a ban that won't take effect for 23 years. A tax is just a soft ban.
dogma1138 9y ago
This restriction applies to all cars not new only as far as I can tell. This is quite different to banning new car sales only.
7952 9y ago
Banning something is much more clear cut. The social benefits and costs can be discussed and we can come to an agreement democratically. A tax system just allows people to continue doing something that is damaging. The government effectively sell the right to abuse a shared resource. Like buying a ticket that allows you to drop litter.

cjsuk 9y ago

Well that's going to be interesting. We're already reaching end of life for some of our older nuclear reactors, coal plants are closing as they are unable to comply with EU emissions regulations and we're basically propping the whole thing up with gas and coal. Every new infrastructure project in this space is a walking disaster of cost and chaos. And to add insult to injury we're doing a very stupid thing and bailing out of Europe which means it's going to cost more to import electricity. So, what are we going to power our cars with? I'm betting I'm on a bicycle again in 2040. Perhaps "peak car ownership" is over. And what are we going to do with all the petrol and diesel cars then? Bury them? Recycling them is more difficult than it looks.

jomkr 9y ago
I manage without a car, I have no intention of getting one again. For the few occasions I need one, I either borrow one from a friend or hire one. Granted I do live Bristol, a very cycling friendly city.
- cjsuk 9y ago
  I am in a similar situation albeit in suburban South-West London. I bought a car in 2006 and it's still hanging on but I have no intention of replacing it. It gets used as a shopping trolley mostly. Literally every use case it had historically is covered by online services now. There's barely even any point going to retail outlets these days as the probability of success is so low compared to online.
  - ioneodns 9y ago
    Your story is atypical given that you live in an area that's a)difficult to drive in (lots of traffic, little parking), b)incredibly well-connected by about half a dozen public transport options. You shouldn't be making generalisations that no one needs a car anymore just because you don't.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Urban and suburban areas cover about 20m people, a third or so of the population.

jlebrech 9y ago

planning a ban is stupid, they should just gradually increase the tax on it till cars disappear off the roads and fund public transport with that money.

jlebrech 9y ago
but motorists are a huge voting block, only someone with a long tenure could ever make those decisions.
the8472 9y ago
it worked for incandescent bulbs.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Weirdly, incandescent bulbs are one of the things that keep coming up on the list of alleged reasons for voting for Brexit. I think it's a bit like the Imperial-metric transition; there are holdouts with strongly felt views.

ioneodns 9y ago

Are you incapable of even reading the title?

dogma1138 9y ago
The title was edited, on top of the Beeb The Guardian's report from this morning also didn't reference new sales specifically, but thank you for your contribution to combating illiteracy world wide.
sctb 9y ago
Please don't violate the guidelines like this (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14854672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14854672 and marked it off-topic.

sumedh 9y ago

Can a new govt come in and cancel the ban in the future?

AndrewDucker 9y ago
Yup. One of the basic principles of democratic government is that you cannot bind the hands of a future government. (Although signing treaties has some of that effect. And there will be publicity around changes which can put politicians off.)

interfixus 9y ago

1997: Legislation to ban sales of CRT television and computer screens by 2020. Politicians. Heartfelt sigh.

robmcm 9y ago
I don't think any manufacturer will be (or want to be) selling ICE cars in 2020, but it gives those manufacturers a mandate to push ahead with deprecating ICEs without scaring share holders.
- phreeza 9y ago
  That seems extremely optimistic, that is 29 months from now. I don't know how long development cycles are in the car industry, but I am pretty sure there are many engineers working on ICE cars to be released in 2020 right now.
  - djaychela 9y ago
    I think they meant 2040, not 2020?
    - robmcm 9y ago
      Yes I did, sorry... getting confused with this and Flash ;)

libeclipse 9y ago

This news made me genuinely happy and hopeful for the future. Hopefully, future governments won't turn back on this.

zapperdapper 9y ago
I don't think future governments will back down on this. They see the writing on the wall all too clearly. I think people just won't want to buy ICE cars long before 2040 - they are simply more expensive to run than EVs. I also think if ride hailing, ZipCar alternatives and so on increase in availability, fewer people will actually want to own a car anyway. Personally, I can't wait to not own a car, it's been one of my life ambitions for a few years now. I am very much looking forward to that day!

wooptoo 9y ago

LOL.

pistonhead 9y ago

I know that petrol and diesel contribute massively to the air quality issues we have in major cities like London (where I live and work), but as a car lover I'm also disappointed by this measure and what it would mean for people like me who love our cars. What I'd like to see more than anything is the following: 1. Diesel powered vehicles are banned from London's congestion charge zone from 2020. If you want to drive in this zone you must drive a petrol, PHEV or fully electric vehicle. Government provides incentives for taxi drivers to trade in their old diesel taxis for PHEV or electric. 2. All London transport is fully electric by 2020. Their current hybrid buses are a joke. They spend about 5 seconds between stops on battery mode and then almost immediately start up their diesel engines on leaving each stop. 3. All new econobox cars are fully electric within the next 5 years. UK government invests in providing charging stations at existing petrol stations across the UK. 4. Sports cars and performance cars still use petrol engines. We also undo the "engine downsizing" trend that was started to help meet unrealistic emissions regulations tests. When on boost, small turbo-charged petrol engines use more fuel than their larger, naturally aspirated predecessors.

jblok 9y ago
1. This is essentially the same as the T Charge which comes into effect in October this year. Diesel taxis are exempt, which is a shame seeing as they are very high polluters, and also drive around all day long. 2. That would be nice, but 2020 is too soon to be realistic. Unless some of the newer busses have options to operate solely under battery with some modifications. 3. Gov. should absolutely invest in infrastructure. 4. Yes, this. It would be seen as favouring the rich, but there should be an exemption for petrol powered performance cars. Some of the finest examples of human engineering are found in supercars and it would be a shame for them to die out. Tesla is obviously a great example of an electric sports car, but there's something to be said for petrol sports cars. Of course, if all the car companies are working electric mass market cars, they'd probably stop working on petrol high end vehicles anyway.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Yeah, the thing to be said about petrol sports cars is that they have poor acceleration. BTW there are all-electric busses available in the market. Stanford has a fleet of them from BYD, and there's also an American manufacturer, ProTerra. I've been stuck behind one of the BYD busses and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it accelerated.

iDemonix 9y ago

As long as I can keep riding one of my early 90s VFR400s and keep putting fuel in my classic mini or BMW E30, I don't mind.

gargravarr 9y ago

As both a petrolhead and a UK resident, I do think this is moving in the right direction. The internal-combustion engine has had its day. Electric and alternative-fuel vehicles are rising in efficiency and range, and it's becoming much more practical to ditch fossil fuels. The number of scandals that have come to light over increasingly tight emissions regulations shows that there is no future in burning fuel. Hopefully the price of electric cars will continue to fall as battery technology improves, although we do still need to address the problem of emissions from manufacturing the batteries in the first place and emissions from generating electricity to charge them. Also, hopefully 2040 is a hard deadline, and car makers will retire the ICE before that point. That said, I hope the use of older cars won't be outright banned. Even though electric cars are becoming much better performers with improving technology, you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation. Elsewhere, while this is a good start, I think we seriously need to rein in the emissions of EVERYTHING that burns fossil fuels. Power plants are already under scrutiny, but shipping is not - it's becoming increasingly clearer that container ships, which burn low-quality heavy oil in international waters, contribute vastly more to air pollution than a large number of cars.

pistonhead 9y ago
> you cannot beat the roar and power curve of a combustion engine around a track or twisty road. Hopefully they'll go like horses - electric cars will take over point to point transport, while ICE-powered vehicles will be for recreation This this this. I think electric cars are great and should replace all non-recreational modes of transport. However, they simply do not compare to the joy and involvement you get from ICE cars. The sound and torque curve is critical for the experience, as is the involvement from a manual transmission and three pedals. I hope that petrol cars will live on.
- Jonnax 9y ago
  This is 23 years into the future. If autonomous cars take off in that time, the future may be that you won't be able to drive a non-autonomous car on the roads. If that were to happen, it would be the motorways first. I would guess. But it would mean that deaths would be significantly reduced. Found this info from 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-main-results-2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... Road deaths:1,732 Seriously injured:22,137 Total: 186,209 casualties of all severities I predict attitudes are going to change where people driving on the roads especially when talking high speed will be banned. If people aren't using petrol cars anymore then you won't have petrol stations every few miles, a full tank will become quite expensive as well due to lack of demand. But hey, it's still a ways away. In my town there's an old sign at the entrance to the square saying that traction engines are forbidden. Today, cars drive through it. What's normal today will change. Who knows how exactly, so enjoy it whilst it lasts!

mysterydip 9y ago

This smells like a "pass something to make it look like I'm doing something so I get re-elected, but take effect far enough away that it either gets repealed or becomes irrelevant so I keep my donors"

dalbasal 9y ago

This is slightly meta, but I'm curious about this concept of legislating for the distant-ish future. My immediate reaction is "cheap" trick, quite literally. It's cheap in the sense that the political/public opposition will be pretty weak on legislation that happens 23 years from now. The authors won't be around to deal with the consequences. It also feels a little wrong to deciding things They will presumably still have a parliament in 2040, shouldn't that parliament decide on laws? Conversely, if future parliaments will decide anyway by altering, we're back to cheap, empty gestures. OTOH, maybe this is a way of de-politicizing.. focusing attention away from the short term, horse trading, and vocal interest groups. Any thoughts on highly delayed legislation like this?

majewsky 9y ago
You could use that line of thinking to argue for all laws to be abolished when the next parliament is elected. Laws are almost always designed to be in effect until repealed so that parliament can focus on what needs changing (rather than what needs sustaining). It also makes society more stable and increases legal certainty. If you want to argue against a law that goes into effect 20 years from today, I'd rather base the argument on our utter inability of predicting things.

Aoyagi 9y ago

Well, first UK would have to get rid of fossil fuel power plants, make renewable more reliable and green, supported by nuclear, batteries themselves have to get notably more efficient, make manufacturing of the cars and batteries more green, recharging in under 5 minutes, massive recharge station network, EVs need to rapidly drop in price... yeah. It's a nice PR stunt though.