„Last but not least, the scandal has highlighted the gross hypocrisy of politically correct companies, as well as how the environmental agenda can backfire spectacularly. Industrial firms should be honest: if they don’t like green rules, or believe that meeting them would impose price hikes on their customers, they should say so, not loudly sign up and bask in the moral high ground while surreptitiously ignoring the rules.
As to the embrace of diesel as a supposedly cleaner alternative to petrol, it has been a disaster caused entirely by official error. Desperate to meet Kyoto Treaty carbon dioxide targets, the European Union decided in the late 1990s to bet the bank on diesel. This reduced CO2 but increased emissions of nitrogen dioxide and particulates, an own goal if ever there were one.
The idiocy of the policy, backed by German carmakers, but for which the Eurocrats must bear responsibility, is only now becoming apparent. Nobody emerges from this sorry saga with any credit.“