The green drive seems to be steering in the right direction across households in Barnet.

It appears a large group of residents have got their act in gear to reduce their level of carbon emissions when travelling around the borough.

Those exhausted of churning out thousands of tonnes of CO2 have given their own cars the boot in favour of a shared alternative.

Over 1,200 people in Barnet have joined the car club Streetcar, which allows them to rent vehicles on an hourly basis and turn in their old motors.

The scheme, whereby members book a car online or over the phone and use remotely activated smartcards to unlock the vehicle, has led to 440 cars being taken off the streets, according to the company.

There are 16 locations and 22 cars in Barnet, and their research shows that for each Streetcar vehicle, 20 private vehicles are withdrawn as members do not buy or replace their own car.

They claim that this means the scheme is twice as effective as the congestion charge in tackling the high levels of traffic across London.

And for the number of cars that have been taken off the roads in Barnet, residents would have to have planted 72,761 trees, which is 1.5m acres of forest, to achieve the same CO2 saving and neutralise the impact of driving them on the roads.

So the key to putting the brakes on soaring levels of CO2 could be to try to get a bumper pay off for the household vehicle and get on board with a car share scheme.