UK taken to Europe's highest court over air pollution - Polidicks

The UK and five other nations have been referred to Europe’s highest court for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution. The European court of justice (ECJ) has the power to impose multimillion euro fines if the countries do not address the problem swiftly. The nations - the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania - had been by the European commission in January. Toxic air results in more than 400,000 early deaths across Europe each year. Levels of nitrogen dioxide, mostly produced by diesel vehicles, have been illegally high since 2010 in the vast majority of urban areas in the UK. The government’s latest plan in 2017 was condemned as “woefully inadequate” by city leaders and “inexcusable” by doctors. Ministers were forced by UK courts to improve the plan in February, after losing in the high court for the third time to environmental lawyers ClientEarth, and have until the end of 2018 to implement the stricter measures. ... Air pollution from NO2 causes an estimated 23,500 early deaths every year in the UK. The UN’s special rapporteur on pollution said in September that the UK government was “flouting” its duty to protect the lives and health of its citizens. The problem was declared a public health emergency by a cross-party committee of MPs in 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/17/uk-taken-to-europes-highest-court-over-air-pollution

Without having seen any actual studies, I'd say that the notoriously shitty old LTC and other diesel taxis, as well as utterly busted up old diesel buses, are probably causing a hell of a lot of harm. However, you also can't downplay the effect of all the many times that this country encouraged people to buy new diesels back in the 2000s which are still going today, sans start stop or emissions reduction measures, and how many vehicles including those without start-stop are forced to sit in traffic every morning because of the UK's seeming inability to address our massive congestion issues in a lot of regions.

Diesel cars were a mistake

unfortunately the dangers of it weren't known to begin with. The great fuel economy was very, very appealing.

Tony Blair’s Labour government ignored health warnings over the impact of diesel vehicles on air pollution, previously confidential Treasury files have revealed. In 2001, then Chancellor Gordon Brown introduced tax changes to petrol-powered cards that led to a four-fold increase in the number of diesel cars on Britain’s roads. Fearing being seen as “overly harsh on diesel users”, ministers working on the 2000 budget chose to dismiss advice to introduce a new levy on diesel cars, according to files obtained by the BBC after a two-year battle with the Treasury. Mr Brown’s introduction of a sliding-scale for vehicle excise duty, with rates depending on the level of carbon dioxide emissions, has led to today’s 12 million diesels on Britain’s roads – half of all cars. The confidential files also show that officials were warned at the time that such a move could leave the government open to “criticism of doing too little on local air quality”. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-diesel-vehicles-health-warnings-impact-cars-air-pollution-tony-blair-gordon-brown-2000-budget-a8062301.html

It still is. 530km for like 37 liters with a very heavy foot at 210km/h in a country where petrol costs 1.4 euros at the highest god awful supermarket pumps is a godsend. And even then, diesel is also getting really expensive.

they're perfectly fine for long distance commutes, all the inherent issues of diesel cars are from people using them for 100% city traffic and because they haven't been mandated to have urea systems. its not exactly people's fault to buy them, they probably haven't been told that diesels are not good in city start stop conditions if I used a diesel on my commute in the US, it'd be fine because I sit at 70 mph for at least 20-30 minutes (sans the occasional traffic apocolypse) and it would clean itself out and run right

Lack of education is the key - you said 'they probably haven't been told...' and this really is the crux of it. None but the most honest and unpressurised of car dealers will try and talk you out of diesel and into petrol if diesel is what you want; after all the customer is always right. They won't advise you about correct DPF use, extra MOT requirements or the higher design average speed of a diesel car. That's probably a big part of what's got us into this situation with cars in particular. I mean, in hindsight, seeing a Ford Fiesta or a VW Polo with a TDCI or similar badge on the back makes me cringe every time. These cars should never have been diesels - they just don't need the torque, and it could have been delivered (at higher cost) with a turbocharged petrol engine such as the TFSI/EcoBoost type engines now being slung into everything. It was a massive fail on the part of New Labour and someone is going to pay for it eventually.

Yeah there was a big push for diesel not too long ago and on paper it seemed like a great idea, more efficient than petrol, cheaper at the pump, you could make that stuff out of plant-oil and shit. Diesel seemed like the perfect solution to many of petrol problems.

No, that is part of the problem too. A petrol car can do this without killing people. Trucks however, still require diesel though.

Maybe not for long if Tesla can deliver Mining trucks on the otherhand...

shit, I wasn't aware of this.

Being from one of the worst offending cities in the country where air quality is regularly in breach of EU safety standards, I say it's about fucking time. It's said that nearly 200 people die a year from pollution here alone.