• I SHARE the frustration of the climate protesters and, as a former scientist, some of the guilt felt by Dr Caroline Vincent.

But causing chaos and confusion and impacting the lives of millions of ordinary people going about their business is not the best way forward.

It simply alienates the people whose behaviour needs to change, (Protesters’ actions are ‘cry for help’, October 27).

But then there was an easy target for the outrage: Rishi Sunak’s original refusal to attend COP27 because he had other urgent business to attend to was appalling.

Climate change should dominate the agendas of all the world’s governments, with the UK at the forefront.

But we do need action on the climate, and one area where I would begin is the private car, drivers of which were probably most directly impacted by the glue-mers.

By chance, I was out in the rush hour last week, waiting for a bus to a hospital appointment. I was appalled to see traffic was back to near-normal: streams of cars with a single person aboard, clogging up the five and six lanes around the Swiss Cottage gyratory. There were several buses trying to get through, all with dozens of people on board.

So here is my suggestion: increase all private motoring costs, including parking fees, fines, road taxes etc, by at least 10 per cent a year for the rest of this decade. Almost all of London is well served by public transport; car use is largely for comfort and convenience.

The massive revenue this would generate means that all public transport could be free, all day and all night. In fact it could even allow free, personal, transport for those unable to use public transport because of mobility issues.

To end on a lighter note: I paraphrase a Groucho Marx quote: “Why should we care about future generations, what have they done for us?”

DAVID REED, NW3