The £27bn programme has been described as ‘the largest ever investment in English strategic roads’. Photograph: Justin Kase zsixz/Alamy
Carbon emissions from England’s planned £27bn roadbuilding programme will be about 100 times greater than the government has stated, according to expert witnesses in a court challenge.
Environmental campaigners are seeking a judicial review of the second roads investment strategy (RIS2), which was described by ministers when launched as “the largest ever investment in English strategic roads”, paying for 4,000 miles of road and including such schemes as the Lower Thames Crossing and the Stonehenge tunnel.
Lawyers for Transport Action Network (TAN) claim that the strategy is incompatible with climate crisis commitments. Government lawyers have argued that the additional net greenhouse gases from the roadbuilding are
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New energy tariffs could leave people on bad deals even worse off despite the potential benefits for everyone, research has found.
The study, led by the University of Leeds, found new types of energy contracts designed for a low carbon future could benefit all types of customer, with opportunities to sell excess energy from solar panels or incentives for using energy at off-peak times.
However, many people were unlikely to choose them because they were disengaged from the energy market, didn t trust energy companies, or already feel satisfied with their current tariffs. Those likely to adopt them first are younger, with higher incomes and higher education.
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Lockdown saw historic drops in global emissions in every sector, except one: sports utility vehicles, or SUVs. They are among the best-selling cars in markets around the world, from India to China, South Africa and Germany. But these vehicles pollute much more than a normal sized car, and require more fuel to move and energy to make. Seen as a status symbol and wrongly thought of as safer than other cars, what can we do to wean ourselves off this polluting vehicle?
Featuring World Service India reporter Arunoday Mukhardji; New York Times Shanghai editor Keith Bradsher, author of High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV; Jillian Anable, Professor of Transport and Energy at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds; and Jim Holder, editorial director, Haymarket Automotive.