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Will the UK miss Net Zero transport targets? From missing policies to Elon & Trump feud | S1EP46

• Alex Wolfe • Season 1 • Episode 46

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On this week's episode, host Alex reviews the Net Zero Transport Council where the Zemo Partnership unveiled their crucial "Map of Missing Policies" document, revealing where current approaches to zero-emission transport are facing hurdles. 

Featuring insights from various visionaries, including Lord John Deben (former Conservative Party Chairman under Margaret Thatcher), they analyse the critical barriers preventing faster adoption of green transport solutions. Against the backdrop of the high-profile feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump that could impact global EV adoption, this episode showcases how practical solutions could transform and finance the Net Zero transport landscape.


The Map of Missing Policies document

Visit the Zemo Partnership website here

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- A focus on investment trends, governmental policies, and the evolving landscape of energy consumption, it promises to provide valuable insights for both industry professionals and the general public.

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Sponsorship:
Season One is sponsored by Aim Recruit – https://aimrecruit.com/
Aim Recruit is an expert recruiter for transport, logistics and energy positions.

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Speaker 1:

As we enter the depths of June, we are looking about how to tackle the problem of moving the transport sector to zero emissions. This week I was a guest of the Zemo partnership at the Net Zero Transport Council, as they have released the map of missing policies that is going to be live in Parliament today, this Wednesday 11th of june, as they discussed with the decision makers in westminster. But this week we have to also mention elon versus trump and what will the effect be on electric vehicles. So conclusion this week we're going to look at the policies about how we get to net zero on transport, but we also have to take into account how the world's most powerful man has fallen out with the world's richest man. Before we go into this week's unbelievable missing policies issues, listen to the likes of lord john debton. We actually want to thank you, the listener.

Speaker 1:

Last week was a monumental week for the podcast for two reasons. One, the episode last week went to over 150,000 listeners and counting. Now I think I've actually got Adam behind me screaming at me that it's actually done over 160,000 amongst the teams. The next bit we also got to thank is our industry partners like Fuel All News, who've put the podcast on the front cover of the magazine. This really has been an honour and a privilege. Enjoy this week's episode, keep on listening, subscribe, follow on all the platforms Apple, spotify and so on. Big thanks to our sponsors, aim Recruit.

Speaker 1:

But please tell all your friends about this that this is the place for energy entertainment. Run with a pack. So what is Zemo Partnership, guys? Well, zemo Partnership brings together across the United Kingdom those people who are looking to accelerate transport to zero emissions. They've got multiple stakeholders, from politicians to industry, to manufacturers, to policy makers, to those people who've got skin in the game, guys, those people that actually want to develop the industry further. Now some of you might be arguing Alex, you know this is a big energy podcast. What do you really feel about net zero? My real feeling is that, ultimately, economies need to be invested in and this is an issue that's not going to go away. Please lick us into the chair of zmo partnerships, lord john deadman, about why this issue is about the how you solve it, not why you solve it this is all going to happen inexorably, whether we like it or not.

Speaker 2:

we are going to decarbonize, and the reason I say that is that, whatever the Daily Telegraph may say and other naysayers, the truth is that all the time, climate change gets worse and people recognise that.

Speaker 1:

So who was there last week as we discussed how we actually sought out the map of missing policies? Well, it was some of the most influential stakeholders in Britain. Looking left to right of the stakeholders who were there last week as we discussed the issues of the missing policies that get transport to zero. It wasn't telling what governments do, but it was just saying this is where we are today and this is what needs to be filled in. What was great as well is who was there? So, looking at left to right, you had Joel Teague, who is the app developer for CoCharger and we'll go more into that about how it could get thousands of charge stations available in the British network. You then had Vicky Reid. Now Vicky Reid, she is the chief executive of Charge UK. It's been going a couple of years, but they bring together all the charge point operators that have installed nearly 80,000 charge points in the UK and we'll hear from her and what's going on.

Speaker 1:

You then then have lord debton. This is a man who's had so many different roles. He was the conservative party chairman under margaret thatcher. He has then gone on to multiple roles of leading british industries, leading water companies, leading big businesses, but also he has never gone far away from his roots. Or trying to develop the environment alongside in infrastructure. He's been the committee of various environmental groups or trying to develop the environment alongside infrastructure. He's been the committee of various environmental groups and he's worked with the likes of Zach Goldsmith in Parliament and recently now he brings together people in the Zemo partnership as their chair to get the stakeholders round a table to break down the barriers. We then have Chris Allen. Now Chris Allen is the managing director of the London EV company, but you'll know it better as the Black Cab company and we're hoping to do a whole special on the Black Cabs and about their journey and actually how that 500 million pound investment back in 2014 set them up as this net zero, tailpipe black cab industry that doesn't just sell to london anymore but sells around the world. And then we have so we move from the manufacturer in this group photo to now we go to the haulier, the logistics man. We've got peter evans and he is their big fleet 120 million pound feet that looks after that. Their across the roads and the HGV sector Probably one of my, you know, favourite sectors and we are working at the moment on a big paper to deliver Adipac about the transition of HGV, and that's why it's so important to attend the Missing Policies Forum.

Speaker 1:

So what are we going to cover in terms of the sort of big areas of the missing policies? We're going to cover unlocking green finance, how we need to bring those people in transport, energy and planning together. We're going to look at the big challenge of decarbonising bus vans and HGV, some fairer taxation that the report goes on to and also essentially how that then comes together for us progressing the thing. There's 50 pages in the report. We obviously can't cover everything in the next 15 minutes, but what we'd like you guys to do is actually really relax and take out the main points that we got from the debate and the discussion, as well as look at the paper and we'll put a link to how you can get involved with the Zemo partnership and what's happening in the area Before we go on, because it would be a remiss to talk about net zero policy.

Speaker 1:

How do we energy transport? When, also that evening, after we had this debate and discussion, twitter stroke X tormenting between the world's most powerful man and the world's richest man happened, a tweet battle started with probably the most unbelievable tweet, considering these guys have been colleagues up until a few days ago of saying that Trump has been involved in the Epstein files. Now what we don't know is what the retaliation will be. As we record this, we also understand there's going to be a clear-the-air call this afternoon, but the reason why we do feel as a podcast it could have effect on this very area of missing policies, even though this document's very focused at the UK government, is that ultimately Tesla, like a lot of companies in, needs involvement from the nation where it's producing its cars. A good example of that is that Tesla and the US government have major contracts together and also the end consumer, a bit like in Europe, has had various tax incentives and tax schemes to go electric. As you can imagine, some parts of America the take-up's been very vast. In other parts it's been slower and it'll probably need further tax regimes to support it. Parts it's been slower and it'll probably need further tax regimes to support it. If the fallout means that tesla government contracts are either part or fully cancelled, if the fallout means that taxations incentives are taken away, it could mean the american public has another barrier in terms of being able to execute their needed desire to change to electric cars. But this sets us up nicely that something like that could derail a system that we've been working on for well over a decade to move transport to zero net emissions.

Speaker 1:

And the first big area that comes up in the missing policies is unlocking green finance. And not only do I do agree with this discussion, but I am so frustrated with the banking system in this country, and the reason I say why I'm frustrated is that we seem to have ended up in an environment and I appreciate there was issues about some of the risks that banks were taking around various banking disasters but we've now seemed to end up in an issue, britain, where you either have very expensive finance for activities with some risk, like energy transition, where your customer base might take a bit longer, or they will only lend to stuff at good rates if it's almost guaranteed money for them, and I just think this is where government does need to step in. I appreciate in the UK pre-COVID, the green finance bank failed and there's a number of reasons and we might do a special on that and we'll look more at this financing issue, but ultimately and it was great hearing from chris allen on this point ultimately the reason that company was able to go electric and green. Is that geely? The much bigger group company, um, with vast international interests across many motor groups, put in 500 million or half a billion back in 2014 to create a production line so you could have net zero taxes. What we want to be in a position is that, essentially, either high street banks or commercial lenders so I'm not saying it has to be government money, but when when they're financing, they're giving timeframes so that zero transition policies can build infrastructure and have, say, a longer turnaround. The reason I think this is a valid good is that all this stuff with a longer length of time means that if short times are what the focus are on, it means that only stuff that ultimately is quick bang back today and non-changing of behavior will go through. We don't say don't invest in our nhs. So what we're saying here is that not just that thing, but it's time to unlock green finances, and high street banks and commercial lenders need to have uh guidelines to essentially unleash these funds quicker and sooner so these projects can happen. I know I worked on a project that was about putting gas into lorries and the slowness that the company had in terms of unlocking finance and raising funds was just utterly depressing and we need to move on from that.

Speaker 1:

The next massive area of the missing policies which I really agree with is that for way too long we've had whether it's local councils or national governments you have a transport department, you have an energy department, you have a planning department that aren't involved in each other and you see the crying shame and the case study that really brought this out was that I essentially get very, very frustrated at when planning stops a new industry or a new set of policies happening, and the reason you can see that is that, whether it's the building of charge stations, whether it's the building of hydropower stations, of hydropower stations, where it's the installations of grid, is that that delay in planning? What it means is is you have a huge amount more money and lag in terms of supplies, that the cost that goes into the system, and also you have this situation where transport, energy and planning not talking to each other means that essentially, when we look at various departments and we look at what happens, is that you stop things like the government who's the customer often in waste deliveries actually being the one that can trigger a whole power revolution and transition in that area. So I'll give you a good example you have a city council. The depots of those companies are struggling to get planning permission to put charging in. As a result, it has huge cost to those depots so they walk away from doing charging. But actually, if you had a joined up government system that said actually to transition this area, we need all of our waste cart depots to be fully charge stations so they can charge, say, 80 to 90 vehicles at the depot. You then have the energy department looking at actually how then the energy supply can go to this and work with the national grid. And then you have planning approve it. So it happens it means that if a council then can essentially go ahead with this project, there can be investment into the energy system. That will then start a culture in that city where one of the biggest energy users in transport and logistics is using electricity, and result then what will happen is you'll set up those garages that can service it, the likes of the dealer network for the heavy good vehicles that that can service it, and essentially what what that would do is revolutionize.

Speaker 1:

Now what actually happens is that and this is a great example from chris allen the Geely Group that not only owns a black cab company but owns several companies that do waste disposal trucks, and one of the examples he gave is they've got an electric waste disposal truck with right-hand drives that needs to go to the left of the UK and essentially the commercial case to do that would be very viable if they could get commitment across the country. Instead. What happened, was it basically was a situation where over 400 councils would have to approve 400 different planning departments, 400 transport departments, and suddenly you have something that's just not economically viable or so time-consuming you can't do it. I loved Chris's analysis of that because for me that was essentially that real groundbreaking moment of essentially that discussion point of where we go. So when we look at charge points from cars, it's very enlightening to hear from Vicky that we'd reach 80,000, but we need to reach 300,000. Challenges in built up areas of, you know, charge points not available to public areas, not on um available to to public areas.

Speaker 1:

There's also that, you know, pushback from lord deblin saying he's now had an electric car for over four years. He's never had an issue charging. Could there just be some better signs? Which that which I think everyone was? That made everyone chuckle. But what I found fascinating wasn't just vicky's saying that the 80 000 to 300 000 is on course and and and we can make this happen as long as we get support on the planning and so on.

Speaker 1:

But I think Joel Teague came up with a really interesting idea. So he's involved in a company called CoCharger App and basically they reckon they could add an extra £100,000 charger, so over doubling what we have today. But if there was a government incentive of 50 pounds for everyone that signed up to the co-charging app with their charge part? And what do we mean by that? Well, people say, oh, there's a problem with blocks of flats or terrace houses, but quite often in lots of streets in london or big cities like manchester, you have people with charge points and the reason why not more people can't use it is because they're not downloading an app that actually makes it very easy to charge others, sort out timing, sort out bookings and what Basic Joe explained was that it means that those houses that do have charge points, they suddenly can increase this charge. Near to me. So he feels that overnight, this system of a 50 pound incentive per download of app could actually increase it by 100 000 chargers, but for less cost than 5 million because people already have these charges at home.

Speaker 1:

I think when lord devton said that every block of flat starts on the ground, it makes total sense that essentially you could actually start giving provision for these co-charging apps so that people who don't have a driveway which, like my good self in London and in Manchester and both both both parts I've lived in recent years is that essentially you would be able to find very, very close and it stops that problem of wanting to buy electric car, which is one of the biggest, biggest things. We then go into looking at the issues of vans, buses, hgvs and so on and it goes back to that whole thing of that relationship in terms of how do we fasten up the process and not harm British industry. We feel that actually Pete Evans was really spot on here. He was like look, we don't run a logistics firm in a race to go bankrupt and things like the second market on trucks and you can see how badly the electric trucks have broken through. So, as of the Zemo report going live, in the whole of the UK there's 862 trucks. I don't mean 862,000, just 862. So it's 0.16 percent of all of trucks in the uk and essentially the reason for that is is that we've got multiple life cycles about to happen before the dates of 2030 and 2035 and we still have a situation where they're too heavy, it's very uncertain about the aftermarket and it's essentially the cost of putting in the infrastructure, and the report goes into how it costs millions to turn into depot, into large charge point, whereas to put like a liquid fuel, like hvo, doesn't. So essentially, hvo could well be a solution as we go towards 2030 and 2035 and I understand for my industry contacts we're already north of 500 million litres a year and we hope to be doing some exciting HVO stuff going into the future.

Speaker 1:

The next bit about missing policies was fare taxation. There's some stuff at the moment which is just bonkers, such as the on the road tax, and what we mean by that is if you charge your car from home, you essentially do not pay VAT because electricity doesn't get charged VAT. However, if you suddenly charge your car on the street or with a forecourt, you get charged VAT, so there's a VAT tax on charging people. By charging on the street, there's an additional cost that is anywhere else. We need to sort this out and I understand that government is trying to increase revenue, but essentially, if you then have more people buying cars, they still get the tax on the purchase of those, and what we're looking at is the actually ways that take away barriers whereas there's a significant barrier there and what needs to be done. And I thought it was a fascinating thing.

Speaker 1:

The report goes into even more detailed discussions as well about how do you stop congestion and looking at ways to really fasten up the process, and even Lord Debton himself came up with a cracking idea saying that 70% of vans during a working day in London are parked and a lot of that is because big buildings don't have concierges and so you've got the guy flapping around for delivery with that van parked to stop and causing traffic delays, all the various delivery drivers going around. I think some stuff like that is that out the box, thinking that I think the Zemo partnership can provide and in terms of what people are looking into. And finally we go to the managing director of Zemo partnership, jonathan Murray. He came back to this point. If we can get transport teams and energy teams and planning teams to work together, then essentially this execution of the projects will be world class and we'll close these gaps we also need, as Lord Debton said, local input but national decision making.

Speaker 1:

I actually think in that room that I was in is a group of people that Parliament needs to listen to, needs to act on their findings. Because ultimately there's all these percentage points that, rather than a situation where it looks like we're going to miss electric car sales in Britain this year in terms of the target of over 30%, we're at 19% at the end of last year and, as they say, doubts about further purchases, concerns about financing. And then there's even smaller things, like in Scotland for taxi drivers they've given a zero percent financing opportunity to buy new vehicles. So again it takes away another barrier. This report, I've got to say, is absolutely phenomenal. We've looked at over the 50 pages, all of the sort of, some of the highlights, but ultimately gives us a blueprint of how we can progress. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

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Alex Wolfe

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