Lexus: The hybrid debate blog

Getting UK drivers to drive hybrids may help in the fight against climate change, but any efforts that a small country such as the UK makes in this area are doomed to failure if developing countries become as enthusiastic for cars as we have been over the past century.

If we want to prevent the developing world from swamping the atmosphere with harmful emissions then we have to subsidise them. We can't say: "You can't develop." We have to help China, India and America to reach agreement on a global emissions cap, and encourage them to go down non-fossil-fuel routes. (They both have nuclear technology, so it's not beyond the wit of man.) Meanwhile, we have to give aid to countries that agree to accept a cap at a developing stage.

I was in Hong Kong recently and there was a "peasouper" out there. It was like London used to be in the 1920s, when my dad worked here. Then, bus conductors used to stand on the top deck to shout out street signs to the driver. China's at that level. They want to clean up before the Olympics. Forty per cent of the water in China is undrinkable. They're shitting themselves about this, and they'll arrive at a deal if we make it worth their while. India is "less aware" but facing the same issues.

In the meantime, there are things that hybrids and similar clean technologies could do for the developing world. And there are projects that the UK could back that would help poor countries reduce emissions while supporting growth.

Take the jatropha bush, for example. It's a plant you might see growing spontaneously in semi-arid conditions, but it can be farmed and planted in huge areas, and it produces as much oil for biodiesel as palm oil. Jatropha has the potential to create self-sustaining power sources across the Third World. Suddenly, the farmers own the land, they own the crop, they've got employment and income, and for the first time they've got a source of power for their vehicles and community generators.

In Swaziland, there's a village jatropha project that provides everyone in the local area with power. If this were rolled out across the country then Swaziland could be a net exporter of power by 2010, when South Africa hosts the Olympics and will not have enough power to supply surrounding countries, as it does normally.

But we're also going have to grapple with unprecedented biofuel problems, since the principal cause of food inflation right now is farmers switching to biofuels to supply old cars. The true value of food is now being realised, and the savings we make on fuel could end up being offset by higher prices at the supermarket.