Fuel Campaigner and Lobbyist Says Ban on Petrol and Diesel Cars ‘Doesn’t Make Sense’

Howard Cox, founder of the FairFuel UK campaign, sits for a photograph in London, England on April 5, 2023. NTD

A lobbyist and campaigner for motorists claimed the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK in 2030 will cost five times more than any environmental benefits.

Howard Cox, CEO of FairFuelUK, said: “There will be about £75 billion worth of benefits in environmental jobs and all those sorts of things, because of the green economy. But it’s gonna cost us £400 billion more to get that. It doesn’t make sense.”

Cox was referring to a report by the CEBR which Fair Fuel UK had commissioned and had been paid for by the Alliance of British Drivers and the Motorcycle Action Group.

Speaking to NTD’s Lee Hall for the “British Thought Leaders” programme, Cox said: “For some reason the UK authorities, particularly in Westminster, have been infiltrated by people who have some sort of hidden agenda to say that the world is ending. It’s not going to end. We’re being driven by emotion, not scientific fact.”

Cox, who campaigns for lower fuel prices and reducing the tax burden on motorists, said: “We are being dominated by people who believe that for some reason or another we can actually stop global warming. Before anyone attacks me on this, I am not a climate change denier, but I do not believe there’s a crisis.”

‘We’re Being Told Lies’

“The climate change is called basically the weather. We had increases of CO2, and don’t forget CO2 is actually a food for plants. We wouldn’t have crops, it’s the basis of photosynthesis, which is a way of actually for plants to grow right across the world. But we’re being told lies in terms of actually what we are inflicting on this planet in terms of the Industrial Revolution,” Cox added.

He went on to say that without the Industrial Revolution and huge technological advances in the last 100 years, there would be no video cameras, smartphones, or central heating and he added, “But we have not impacted on the planet. There are cyclical things happening on this planet, because of things like solar radiation, all sorts of things that are happening. It’s nothing to do with us.”

Cox called for lower taxation and more investment in clean fuel technology.

He said: “I’m all for actually lowering CO2 emissions and all those sorts of things.”

But he went on to say that the UK produces only 1 percent of the world’s emissions and added: “The other 99 percent come from places like India, South America, America, North America, China, they’re not going to do anything. They’re building coal mines, all those sorts of things.”

A family walks past as activists take part in a demonstration outside Buckingham Palace, as part of protests by the Extinction Rebellion climate change group on the fifth day of their new series of 'mass rebellions', in central London, on Sept. 5, 2020 Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

Cox said: “We cannot do anything here and it’s arrogant to think we can and I challenge any of the politicians in government at the moment. Stop trying to think that you can lead the world in actually reducing emissions. You can’t. We’ve done enough. UK is one of the cleanest places on the planet. Stop this virtue-signalling rubbish.”

He said a 75-year-old pensioner who drives her diesel car to the supermarket or to the doctors to sort out some medical ailment was “penalised as though when she gets in her car she’s killing off the planet, she’s not.”

Cox said: “Diesel is the commercial heartbeat of the economy and the government for some incredible reason doesn’t seem to get that if they reduce the cost of diesel you watch our economy rocket. It would go absolutely bananas in terms of actually increasing in terms of GDP.”

On Saturday, hundreds of people took part in a protest in London’s Trafalgar Square against the London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to extend the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to the outer limits of the capital.

Losing the ‘Freedom to Drive’

Cox is adamantly opposed to the plan to expand the zone and he said: “One of the most important battles we are fighting is for the freedom to drive. It is one of the most important freedoms in our lives, the freedom to travel, to get in our car and go anywhere we want.”

He said: “But we’re now told we can’t go anywhere. We’ve got Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. We’re told that if we haven’t got the right sort of emissions in the car, you’re going to be paying an extra £12 and then you’ve got the congestion charge on top of that.”

An anti-ULEZ protest organised by the Together Declaration in London on April 15, 2023. Owen Evans/The Epoch Times

“Guess what? Those sorts of restrictions on low-income families, it’s a regressive tax, it hits small businesses.”

Cox said he received a very “emotive” email recently from a plumber in Bromley who drives his van into central London in order to quote for work.

“There’s no guarantee that he’s going to get the business from those quotes, and he’s gambling. And he simply said he’s not going to do that, he’s not going to work in London again,” he added.

Khan faces another election in May 2024 and Cox said: “I’m going to fight until I die to stop this man from actually ever getting elected again.”

“I’ve been asked by a lot of people if I would stand for mayor. I won’t say yes or no at the moment, but I am considering my options. And you can read into that what you want,” said Cox.