£145 million was earmarked in the March 2021 British budget for environmental spending. Let almost 40 billion is spent on polluting ones. Tax breaks to companies, to encourage investment in projects (that will damage the environment ) along with £4.5 billion lost from the fuel duty freeze (it has been frozen for 11 years).
As for the lost fuel duty money, the government needs to recognize that this money is not going to be there in its current form long-term. Currently it is recognized that the government taxes fuels harshly because they are bad for the environment. In Norway, they have been so successful encouraging electric cars that they are already seeing tax from fossil fuels dropping precipitously – so this area may well be something that the government should not be relying on. It is possible that the government simply swap and start taxing electric cars into the ground. However there are plenty of issues with this, the main one being, given how cheap it is to run an electric car, in order for the government to get the same from electric cars they would have to add tax of perhaps 900%. Also it is well known that the government is supposed to tax things that are bad (for the user or those around him) so it would send a very bad message to tax electric cars so heavily.
So what about the 40 billion on polluting projects? Well, I am sure I am not the only person who wants the government to walk the talk. This is a huge investment. £40 billion could easily make many positive projects work. The governments investments must be in line with what it says elsewhere.
More importantly, the government has suggested that if electric cars cannot stand on their own two feet they should be allowed to die- the electric car industry is 20 years old or so, yet the fossil fuel industry is well over 100 years old. In this huge industry – which is largely to blame for our current predicament, cannot stand on its own two feet, even after this long, then it should be allowed to die.
Imagine if the worlds rich governments had not been propping up fossil fuels for over a century? Might we have developed other ways of doing things long long ago? It is often said that what you spend should reflect your priorities. If that is true then governments around the world should act, and watch every major fossil fuel company in existence fold
