"A significant amount of this is attributed to transport and travel activities. Richmond Council is considering introducing a new pricing structure to encourage the use of vehicles with lower carbon dioxide emissions."

Officials in Richmond, southwest London, plan to give electric and some hybrid car owners free parking permits, while drivers of vehicles with high carbon dioxide emissions could be charged three times the current annual 100-pound (150-euro, 190-dollar) fee.

Motorists around the country, particularly in London, are facing increasing stick-and-carrot inducements designed to reduce congestion and limit the environmental damage caused by cars.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone has tried to tackle city centre traffic paralysis with his eight-pound daily congestion charge, set to expand westwards in February 2007.

Livingstone also wants to charge owners of 4x4s -- nicknamed "Chelsea tractors", as many are seen driving round in the chic west London suburb -- 25 pounds a day for the congestion charge.

And in March, finance minister Gordon Brown said the most polluting vehicles including 4x4s would have to pay 210 pounds annual vehicle tax, while exempting electrics and some hybrids.

The leader of Richmond council, controlled by Britain's third biggest party, the centre-left and traditionally environmentalist Liberal Democrats, said it would consult residents and local businesses on the plans.

"Richmond upon Thames is one of the highest CO2-emitting boroughs in London. We must all start acting now at local level," said Serge Lourie.

The scheme would bring in a sliding scale of charges from band A, covering electric cars, to the most expensive band G, catching 4x4s as well as Porsche 911s, Jaguar X-Types and Renault Espace people carriers.

Richmond residents, such as Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, would also be charged 50 percent extra for permits on second cars under the plans, which the council will debate on November 6 and hopes to implement them in the New Year.

A council spokesman said the scheme will raise around one million pounds, but denied it was being proposed to generate revenue.

The Honda Insight, listed by Richmond as a typical band A example, is no longer sold in Britain.

But British sales of the Toyota Prius, perhaps the country's highest-profile petrol-electric hybrid which falls into band B, have rocketed from 183 in 2000 to 3,749 in 2005 and could top 5,000 this year.

The Prius, driven by celebrities including US actress Cameron Diaz, is one option offered to British ministers as their official vehicle.

And the leader of the main opposition Conservatives, David Cameron, uses a hybrid Lexus, made by a division of Toyota, as his official car.

A spokesman for Greenpeace welcomed Richmond's move but Mike Rutherford, of the Motorists' Association, told Sky News television the charge would catch some family cars with larger engines.

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