Volkswagen’s chief executive has pledged to employ a young climate campaigner to “aggressively” challenge the company’s environmental policies, as he acknowledged the world’s largest carmaker was moving too slowly in the race to roll out electric vehicles. “I’m looking to hire an activist,” Herbert Diess told the Financial Times. “We have so many ideas, but they take too long to implement in our big organisation, so I need someone really aggressive internally.” In a rare move for a multinational, the appointee will be granted direct access to Mr Diess, and other top VW executives. Diess, who is overseeing the German group’s €33 billion push into battery-powered vehicles, has been increasingly vocal about the need for a CO2 price — a carbon tax that applies to all industries as opposed to individual sectors — and has called on Brussels to crack down on coal-fired energy plants in Europe.

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Financial Times