Green Revolution Hypocrisy: Tory Climate Tsar Drives Diesel Car

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 14: COP26 President Alok Sharma rehearses a speech at Whitelee Win
Russell Cheyne - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

The president of the COP26 United Nations climate change conference has admitted he still drives a diesel vehicle, the latest hypocrisy for green revolutionary Prime Minister Boris Johnson after his climate spokesman said she doesn’t want an electric car.

The prime minister announced in November 2020 a ban on buying new fossil fuel vehicles by 2030 — and even hybrids by 2035 — as part of his “Green Industrial Revolution”. However, the message that the future is electric and that this change will not be an option for the general public has failed to reach some of his closest allies.

Last week, the government’s climate cheerleader Allegra Stratton admitted that she was not interested in buying an electric car — “I don’t fancy it just yet” — because the time it takes to charge them causes disruption to long journeys and that she would rather stick with her diesel Volkswagen Golf.

Tory minister Alok Sharma likewise admitted that despite his high-profile position as chief of this year’s climate conference, he still drives a diesel, per comments reported this week in The Telegraph.

“I can assure you that my next car will most certainly be an electric vehicle,” Mr Sharma told the BBC’s Newsnight this week.

The BBC also noted on Thursday that besides Stratton and Sharma, the prime minister is still driven around in ministerial cars powered by, as Johnson calls them, “hydrocarbons” — i.e., petrol and diesel.

Glasgow, Scotland, is set to be the location for this November’s UN COP26, where it is likely British politicians will discuss the notionally Conservative government’s pledge for the UK to go net-zero by 2050.

In another display of green elite hypocrisy, it was revealed that the thousands of attendees flying from around the world to the United Kingdom for the conference will be exempt from the full pandemic regulations on travel, including shorter quarantine or none at all.

Meanwhile, four in 10 Britons have admitted to being “eco-shamed” by friends for their lack of environmentally-friendly habits and by 44 per cent of relatives. More than one-third have been shamed by a colleague, romantic partner, and even a stranger.

Such crimes against the planet that Britons admitted to being chastised for include using single-use plastic or leaving appliances on too long to charge.

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