{"id":314100,"date":"2025-12-13T15:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/314100\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T15:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:45:11","slug":"warning-for-uk-households-who-have-cheaper-cars-sat-on-driveway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/314100\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning for UK households who have ‘cheaper cars’ sat on driveway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Households with cheaper cars are ‘contributing disproportionately to their local urban air quality problems’, according to a new study. Scientists from the University of Birmingham<\/a> said the findings ‘reverse the usual pattern’ where wealthy households typically cause more greenhouse gas emissions through higher consumption.<\/p>\n

The newly-published report is based on analysis of over 50,000 vehicles being driven on UK roads. Scientists used ‘advanced remote sensing technology’ to measure real-time emissions on the city’s streets as motorists passed and combined this with ‘machine learning-based price estimation’ to make its calculations.<\/p>\n

The report found that more expensive vehicles produced fewer harmful pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide (NO\u2082) and oxide (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM).<\/p>\n

READ MORE Drivers face crackdown on rule councils previously had ‘limited power’ to enforce<\/a><\/p>\n

Report co-author Professor Francis Pope said: “Our study provides the first clear evidence to support vehicle price being a reliable indicator of emission performance – powerfully illustrating how citizens’ economic capacity can directly influence environmental outcomes and urban air quality.<\/p>\n

‘”Individuals from lower-income households may be more likely to own older, cheaper, and higher-emitting vehicles – contributing disproportionately to local air pollution.”<\/p>\n

Report co-author Dr Omid Ghaffarpasand said: “Our findings underscore the need for targeted policy interventions to address environmental injustice.<\/p>\n

“Lower-income communities bear the brunt of local air pollution due to limited access to cleaner vehicles – exacerbating health risks and pollution exposure in disadvantaged urban areas.”<\/p>\n

A report by the International Energy Agency last year claimed expensive SUVs are responsible for ‘over 20 per cent of the growth in global energy-related CO2 emissions’ in 2023.<\/p>\n

“If SUVs were a country, they would be the world\u2019s fifth largest emitter of CO2,” it stated.<\/p>\n

“[They] weigh 200 to 300kg more than an average medium-sized car, and typically take up nearly 0.3 m2 more space \u2013 emitting roughly 20 per cent more carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

“The trend towards heavier and less fuel-efficient cars increases energy demand, including oil and electricity use, as well as demand for basic metals and critical minerals needed for battery production.<\/p>\n

“Over the course of 2022 and 2023, global oil consumption directly related to SUVs rose by a total of over 600,000 barrels per day, accounting for more than a quarter of the overall annual growth in oil demand,” it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Households with cheaper cars are ‘contributing disproportionately to their local urban air quality problems’, according to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,85199,124864,1294,1909,65152,124865,56,54,55,52192],"class_list":["post-314100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-carbon-monoxide","tag-cheaper-cars","tag-economy","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-harmful-pollutants","tag-nitrogen-dioxide","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-university-of-birmingham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}