Formula 1 and Top Gear

 

Phasing Down Fossil Fuel? Not on your Nelly!

The government has been attempting to convince us that COP26 was a real breakthrough on climate change as a result of an agreement to phase down fossil fuels. But what does this mean? Alok Sharma was an honest broker at the talks and probably exceeded the expectations of many climate change activists. I doubt that any other member of the government could have provided the diplomatic acumen required to secure any agreement. However, if the UK has any remaining soft power, the top of its agenda should be phasing out high octane motorsports like Formula 1 that are largely hosted by the UK. It could also use its influence to eliminate the world-beating TV motor programme that promotes the extravagance of the internal combustion engine. 

Take the Formula 1 Grand Prix series in which 10 teams with 20 cars spend $3-4bn per annum on competing in 21 Grand Prix in 21 countries. The logistics of transporting the cars, spares, trucks and teams by air, sea and land has an enormous carbon footprint that alone costs $800m per annum. As a way of burning fossil fuels, it is highly effective. There are 6 or 7 Boeing 747 cargo planes and 300 trucks involved in the movement of the F1 circus to all continents. And it is estimated that each Formula 1 car uses 190,000 litres of fuel each year for practices and racing.

This is half funded by the team's owners that are mainly vehicle or engine manufacturers - Mercedes, Renault, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Honda and then there's Red Bull. Sponsorship provides most of the remaining costs with tobacco companies like British-American Tobacco and Philip Morris and the oil giants: INEOS, Petronas, Shell, Mobil, BP, and Castrol the main culprits. There are many other non motor related companies drawn mainly from the IT, fashion, and luxury goods sectors. These companies  are looking for the hype of association with the glamour of F1 and a walk down the pit lane for their freeloaders. More worrying is that the Financial Times chips into the sponsorship as well.

The titans of F1 will probably argue that there has already been a phasing down of F1 (but not its carbon footprint) since its peak in 2007. Sponsorship reached $2,900m in 2007 since when it has dropped to below $2000m per annum. This is primarily a result of the non-oil sponsorship deals declining as the merit of Formula 1 as a medium of advertising has diminished compared to the benefits of using social media. In part, this is because there has been a 19% loss in TV viewers as F1, in its perpetual greed mode, sold the broadcasting rights to subscription TV companies instead of retaining the wider audiences reach from free to air broadcasters. 

It would be a useful tool for encouraging carbon abstinence if the climate change activists would publish the list of F1 sponsors as a means of putting pressure on them to phase down their support for the climate change damage caused by F1. After all, we were told at COP 26 that the private sector was going to drive the charge to become carbon neutral. Electric car racing is already growing fast, why not speed it up and make it the mainstream form of motorsport.

Meanwhile, we have witnessed a new series of Top Gear, the laddish celebration of expensive fossil fuel burners, with complex logistic escapades to far-flung lands where cars are trashed and fuel is burnt. The government have shown in recent years that they like to push the BBC around for no justifiable reason other than to promote their own agenda, so why not give Alok Sharma a bit of help and tell the BBC to scrap this outmoded worshipping of ICE supercars.

The advantage of both these moves would generate huge public controversy with both positive and negative arguments. In the process it would enable the UK government and our world-beating broadcaster, the BBC, to prove that they are in the vanguard when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels. It would also force our media and politicians to come clean and show which side they are on when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels.

Top Gear - time to phase out celebrity fossil fuel burners