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BRITAIN is driving a campaign to make motorists go green.
Owners of large cars are to be taxed £25 (S$77) a day to drive into the city centre of London.
People carriers, 4x4s and luxury saloons will be targeted in an effort to penalise the highest-polluting vehicles on the roads, according to The Sunday Times of London yesterday.
Smaller cars, such as diesel hatchbacks and hybrid vehicles that emit 120g or less of carbon dioxide (CO2) per km, will be exempt.
Those emitting up to 225g per km would be charged £8.
The new tax, details of which are to be outlined later this week by Mayor Ken Livingstone, will be introduced next February.
It is likely to be watched by at least 10 other cities considering their own levies, including Birmingham, Manchester and Cambridge.
London is leading the way in penalising drivers who pollute. Three borough councils there have already introduced higher parking charges for fuel-inefficient vehicles, and the city introduced a successful congestion charge scheme in 2003 for drivers entering the city centre.
Cars with CO2 emissions of over 120g per km already have to bear a 50 per cent hike in their parking permit.
Earlier last week, Britain's Department for Transport released a list of fuel-efficient cars for drivers, inviting criticism from the Automobile Association, which said the move verged on the 'nanny state'.
The Best On CO2 list features more than 10 approved cars with the lowest CO2 emissions in categories that range from supermini to SUV, and executive to luxury class.
CO2 is one of the greenhouse gases said to increase global warming. 'By choosing a car with the most fuel-efficient engine, drivers could reduce their CO2 emissions by 24 per cent and save a quarter on fuel costs,' British Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said last week.
According to his ministry's website, the ranking does not aim to recommend specific models but to provide data to help people make informed choices.
The Volkswagen Polo Bluemotion (supermini class) topped the list as the most fuel-efficient car in all categories with a CO2 emission of 99g per km.
Toyota Prius, a small family car, was the only petrol-variant in the list of top five cars with CO2 emissions of as low as 104g per km.
BMW had two models - the executive class E60/61 (136g of CO2 per km) and the luxury class E650/661 (210g per km) - in the list while the Citroen C5 qualified as the best family class diesel car at 135g per km.
The government campaign's underlying message was that a diesel car was the best option, as it would typically travel at least 20 per cent farther on the same amount of fuel than a similar-size car using petrol.
Diesel car sales have grown rapidly in Britain since 2000 - from 15 per cent of all new cars sold to 39 per cent last year. But the rise has started to tail off, partly because the pump price of diesel tends to be higher than that of petrol by a few pence a litre.
In Singapore, out of 470,000 cars bought by individuals last year, only seven run on diesel and 594 on alternate fuels. However, more than 23,000 taxis run on diesel.
Most diesel models available in Singapore do not comply with the stringent Euro-IV standards that came into effect last October.
rupsk@sph.com.sg
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