Dieselgate: the sequel
Car manufacturers must be held to account - our new analysis shows a shocking number of the most polluting diesel cars are still on UK roads, 10 years after Dieselgate.
Last week we protested outside the High Court to demonstrate the level of public concern about the scandal of the amount of excess NOx emissions we are still breathing in.
Excess NOₓ emissions
We have discovered that 7.5 million of the UK's 10.7 million diesel cars are Euro 5 and 6 models, emitting 51,400 tonnes of excess NOx annually above legal emission limits. Cars certified to these standards were shown to be using defeat devices which cheat emissions tests.
Not only that, those 7.5 million diesel cars make up just under a quarter of the cars on UK roads, yet they’re responsible for almost 30 per cent of all NOx emissions from road transport, including that from vans and HGVs. This is far higher than previously thought.
Dieselgate class action
Jemima Hartshorn and Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah outside the High Court
The largest class action lawsuit in UK history is in the High Court this week. The court will decide if it should release documents about diesel cars that used illegal defeat devices to cheat emissions tests.
Last week we presented our open letter to the court, signed by MPs, over 50 major charities & organisations and hundreds of individuals, demanding that all details be made publicly available.
A huge thank you to all who supported this analysis and action, including the hundreds who signed the open letter and all those who came to the High Court to present our open letter. We were so pleased to have Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, Jonathan from Asthma and Lung UK and Richard from the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change supporting us in person.
You can read coverage of this in the Sunday Mirror and Air Quality News.