My Right Wing Agenda

The Govt is now forced to admit that its car tax scheme will affect far more people than they originally thought. I still struggle with understanding the basic principle here, since its retrospective rather than effecting future purchase it will surely also make people consider scrapping their old(ish) car and now go and by a brand spanking new one? Admittedly a brand new car will be marginally greener in what comes out the exhaust than one made 5 or 6 years ago. Are bureaucrats and environmentalists that stupid that they ignore the enormous carbon foot print it costs to make a car in the first place? Or does this not count to the cars output, perhaps since its probably made somewhere else in the world it doesn't count to our "quota"... so if we all scrap our cars and drive demand for shiny new ones... despite the fact that overall global co2 will rocket.. but hey since it's not in our quota I guess that makes it's ok!