DRIVERS of gas-guzzling cars are to be penalised under measures being developed to tackle climate change.

Ministers are particularly keen to target the growing number of people who drive large 4X4s around cities and venture off tarmac only when parking on grass verges.

In an interview with The Times, Malcolm Wicks, the Energy Minister, said: “There is crass irresponsibility in some of the larger monstrosities people drive around suburbia and in London. We have to move against this kind of thing.”

Owners of cars with high emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, face higher taxes. Those who choose hybrid cars and vehicles powered by alternative fuels will benefit from incentives designed to accelerate the shift to “low carbon cars”.

Road transport accounts for a fifth of Britain’s CO2 emissions and is one of the few sectors in which emissions have grown in the past decade.

A record 187,000 4X4s were sold last year, up from 80,000 a decade ago. Small cars accounted for the smallest proportion of new cars since 1999.

The Government is committed to cutting CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 and believes that tough measures will be needed to persuade drivers to choose greener vehicles.

Transport fuel is a key topic in the Government’s Energy Review, which is considering long-term energy needs. Policy proposals will follow in the summer. The review is being led by Mr Wicks, who said that he was determined to clamp down on manufacturers and owners.

He said that British and European manufacturers had been too slow to develop hybrid cars, which have both a petrol or diesel engine and an electric motor, and use energy normally lost in braking to recharge their batteries.

“I’m disappointed how slow some motor manufacturers have been to follow the lead of the Japanese. Why do I use a Toyota Prius hybrid? Other things being equal, I would like to have bought a car from a British or European manufacturer.”

Mr Wicks said that the small measures the Government had adopted so far, such as offering £1,000 grants to people buying a Prius, were no longer enough.

“Given the very demanding CO2 cuts we must make, we are going to need more than just a series of marginal changes. We are going to need a step change. We will have to ask ‘is it environmentally responsible to be producing cars which are a serious part of the problem?’ There will come a time when it will be irresponsible for those to be on sale.”

Mr Wicks and Stephen Ladyman, the Transport Minister, are considering how to include road transport in the European emissions trading scheme, under which companies have to buy permits to cover any CO2 emissions above a specified level.

Mr Ladyman said: “Somewhere down the supply chain, it will have to be more expensive to supply fuels which are high in CO2.

“The thrust of any policy post-2010 has to be to make people make greener choices.”

But Mr Ladyman admitted that he had not chosen the greenest option himself. He said that he had considered a Prius “for, ooo, about a millisecond”, before opting for an Alfa Romeo GT diesel.

It produces 165 g/km, far better than petrol versions of the car but not as good as the Prius at 104 g/km.

Mr Ladyman said that all cars would become less polluting from 2010 under plans to force suppliers to produce 5 per cent of transport fuel from renewable sources, such as crops or animal fat, by 2010. “We have to look at increasing the proportion to far more than 5 per cent after 2010,” he said.

In the short term, the Government is considering raising vehicle excise duty for gas guzzlers. The Treasury is understood to favour proposals from the RAC Foundation for a new top rate of £200 to cover cars that produce more than 250g of CO2 per kilometre.