Pollutionwatch: petrol, not diesel, is less polluting in the short term

A decline in the number of diesel cars would not jeopardise CO2 targets – in fact it would make them cheaper to achieveThe UK Society of Motor Manufacturers blamed February’s rise in the average new-car CO2 emissions on an “anti-diesel agenda [that] has set back progress on climate change”. Petrol v diesel cars is often presented as a trade-off between health-harming air pollution and climate-harmful CO2. Diesel cars do more miles to the litre than petrol, but this exagge