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TAX POLICYS * UK - FTA: Focus on carbon, not fuel duty
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has called for the freight industry to focus its lobbying on carbon emissions, rather than just fuel duty
London,UK -RoadTransport/Motor Transport, by Lindsay Clark -24 June 2009: -- ... Speaking at the FTA's Cutting Carbon, Cutting Costs conference last week, James Hookham, policy and communications director for the FTA, said the industry needs to put together a coherent alternative to fuel duty, which ties in with the climate change agenda, instead of tackling the tax head-on... The Road Haulage Association (RHA) welcomed the FTA's stance. "Anything that highlights what a clean and efficient industry this is has got to be good news," says Kate Gibbs, RHA head of communications... The government introduced the Climate Change Act in 2008, which commits the UK to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 compared with 1990 levels... * OPINION - Should we use climate change to lobby on fuel duty?
(Picture from wikipedia: Freiston Shore low tide)
London,UK -RoadTransport, by Lindsay Clark -June 25, 2009: -- As Isotrak's, Craig Sears-Black talked about moving cauliflowers from the Fens to Westminster, I wondered how long vegetable supplier Marshalls would be working from the area... Sears-Black was speaking at the Freight Transport Association (FTA) conference about carbon emissions on the same day the Met Office produced worrying forecasts on the effects of global warming in the UK - among them rising sea levels. Marshalls ships cauliflowers out of a Boston, Lincolnshire distribution centre, which sits in the middle of a mass of reclaimed land, close to current sea level. Beyond sea defences, a few miles away, the ocean is rising at an alarming rate, according to the Met Office...
(Picture from Wikipedia: Tollesbury Managed Realignment site in Essex, the first large scale attempt at saltmarsh restoration in the UK)
Some nearby farmland has already been given back to the sea, in a process dubbed 'managed retreat'... The point of Sears-Black's talk was to show that, by sharing data online, hauliers can cut the miles they run without cargo. This is something UK firms have become good at largely because of the extortionate fuel duty levied by the government... And this is where the industry is missing a trick, says the FTA's managing director of policy and communication, James Hookham. While fuel duty has forced efficiency, the industry hasn't told many people. Instead, protesters threaten blockades and don't endear hauliers to the public. Fuel duty may be unfair, but the government has calculated the electorate doesn't care how much hauliers pay... So, instead of confronting the government head-on about fuel duty, Hookham says, it's better to highlight how transport can help combat global warming... In an industry where cash equals fuel equals carbon, cutting emissions can help the planet... and your bank balance. Hookham says it's time to engage in this 'green' debate. And it's time that the industry backed him...
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