Spotlight: Time to U-turn on emissions targets

Strains, trains and automobiles

In a room on the top floor of Sunderland’s new City Hall building, a wooden map spreads out across a large table top.

Split in half by the winding River Wear and dotted with bright green foliage, the miniature scene presents a faithful reflection of the city’s undulations, buildings and landmarks.

From the Stadium of Light to Mackie’s Corner, the Empire and the commercial and residential structures that have sprouted from the Riverside Sunderland venture on the old Vaux brewery site, the city is neatly depicted in scale form.

Beyond its centre, though, the topography is somewhat more unsteady.

Nissan – so long the bastion of Wearside’s employment scene – is on a rocky road.

Already grappling with falling sales in China and the US, which have put 9000 international jobs on the line, European bosses say Westminster emissions targets – that have already seen rivals Vauxhall and Ford announce cuts – “risk undermining” its case for making cars in the UK.

We have, of course, been here before. Remember the post-Brexit Downing Street talks between the Japanese firm and ministers in 2016 that provided assurances for its future on Sunderland soil?

Well, here we are again. And, once more, we need a similarly positive outcome.

Nissan’s Wearside plant is an economic colossus, employing about 6000 staff directly and supporting thousands more roles across a vast supply chain that includes many North East operators.

It is also a capital for electric vehicle production, having made the all-green Leaf hatchback for more than a decade, prowess that convinced bosses to produce carbon-free versions of its best-selling Qashqai and Juke models on the same site.

So to see it close, or become a shadow of its present self, is a prospect not worthy of consideration.
Speaking to N magazine before Christmas, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said talks have taken place, and will continue to be added to ministers’ diaries in 2025.

Confirming a review into the Conservative- founded emissions blueprint – which presently demands 100 per cent of new car sales be carbon-free models by 2035 – she promised Westminster’s new regime is committed to “not making it any harder to produce cars in this country”.

And there should be no excuses.

Labour’s cabinet includes Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who both hail from the same parish as Nissan, so know full well the impact the company has made on the region since its arrival in the mid-1980s.

Having secured some positive PR in the weeks before the festive period, by fulfilling a pre-election pledge to help deliver new work for ailing Newton Aycliffe-based trainbuilder Hitachi, Labour’s lens must remain on the North East.

That deal secured about 700 direct posts,
kept suppliers on track and saved face for the pocket of the UK that gave the world rail travel.

Nissan, though, would be seismic.

Which is why we need action, and quickly, to avoid any potential of it disappearing in the rearview mirror.

Here’s Donny…

Here we go, then. Another bout of Donald Trump.

And, in this case, Elon Musk, who’s swapped hawking his jumped-up Johnny Cab robotaxi for time flogging politics by algorithm.

In a way, it’s a pretty seamless move; after all, both are underpinned by dedicated faith in the outlandish.

And what better way to warm up for helping orchestrate Trump’s second stanza than using his X platform to get involved in a bit of UK politics?

Jumping on a petition launched by a Tory- voting pub landlord – who sought to oust Labour having woke one morning in a grump with the Prime Minister – Musk was all over the story, musing ‘interesting’ and ‘wow’ on posts that pushed the campaign along the increasingly weird corridors of his X social media vacuum.

Was it, though? Really?

I mean, Labour is doing a fine job in ceding its election gains, but a Westminster regime upsetting members of the electorate is hardly new.

And, of course, a petition for a new ballot isn’t how the system works.
Space X’s boss must have been busy looking skywards when that lesson was doled out, as he presumably was when Boris Johnson and his successors were cackhandedly running the country…

Not that it mattered to Elon, of course.

He got his clicks and his platform’s followers got to shout into a few populist echo chambers for a while.

Fake news? Only when it suits…

Rebrand rumpus

Returning to the automotive sector, and whatever your take on Jaguar’s recent rebrand, you have to at least tip your hat to the company’s marketing team.

To create such furore and interest in the brand when you don’t have a physical car to look at, never mind drive, is quite an achievement.

Like seemingly everything these days, the famous marque’s refresh – which came complete with a new font and a video of nonplussed models in vivid reds, pinks and yellows – incurred a binary reaction, including a barb from dear old Elon.

The true test will come when the fluff and fanciness is replaced by reality, when Jaguar’s new all-electric offer hits the forecourts in earnest.

But in a world where the cost of producing electric models remains higher than conventional alternatives, and where the infrastructure needed to charge models continues to play catch-up, there are no guarantees sales will fly.

And if they don’t, then that would say more about the state of the UK’s economy and its green transport landscape than it would any impact caused by figures in bright clothing and a lower case typeface.