A new campaign called “Badvertising” is demanding an immediate end to adverts for large polluting cars.
It says the government should clamp down on sports utility vehicle (SUV) car adverts in the way it curbed smoking ads.
A car industry spokesperson said modern SUVs are the cleanest in history, and said many can run on batteries.
But a leading academic said sales of big polluting cars will breach UK climate targets, and should be banned.
SUVs now make up more than 4-in-10 new cars sold in UK, while fully electric vehicles account for fewer than two in a hundred.
The authors of the report point out that even electric engines won’t solve all the problems with SUVs.
That’s because they will still pollute the air through particles rubbing off brakes and tyres, and use up carbon-emitting resources to make their heavy batteries.
In urban areas, big SUVs are a particular nuisance, they say. Their report found that 150,000 new cars on the road are too big for a standard UK street parking space.
The authors want to outlaw advertising for cars with average emissions of over 160g CO2/km, and those exceeding 4.8m in length.
Professor Jillian Anable, from the Leeds University Transport Studies Unit, said the government needs to see the big picture on cars - and consider banning large polluting models altogether.
"(Given our CO2 targets) there is a clear trade off to be made: the more we can shrink the size and weight of the cars we drive, the less we will have to restrict how much they are driven.
“We ought to be thinking about not allowing large polluting cars to be sold into the UK market at all.”
She added: “Our research shows an approach where the most polluting cars are phased out from now over the next 10-15 years will be more effective than the government’s proposed ‘cliff-edge’ target date in the future where petrol and diesel cars are suddenly no longer allowed to be sold.”
SUVs are for MUGs - Ban 'em, ban 'em all …… :!:
