France plans petrol/diesel car ban by 2040, Norway by 2025
France broke the internet last weekend when their current government announced their plan to ban all petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Now Norway is supposedly announcing that they will carry out a similar ban by 2025.
According to a Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv headline, the populist right-wing “Progress Party” claims they have reached a consensus with opposition parties on carrying out a ban on all petrol cars by 2025, although others from the same party are claiming the move has not been confirmed. The goal is to apparently have 100% of Norwegian cars running on green energy by 2025.
According to The Independent, about 24% of Norway’s cars already run on electricity, and more than 99% of electricity covered by hydropower. The irony is that the country is also highly dependent on petroleum revenues, since it is an oil producer, second only to Saudi Arabia in oil exports.
France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, as announced by the country’s new environment minister, Nicolas Hulot. As part of the plan to make France carbon-neutral by 2050, poorer households will receive a premium so they can swap their polluting vehicles for “clean” alternatives. It remains to be seen how this affects the struggling French automotive industry, and whether any future elected governments overturn this ban, just as U.S. president Donald Trump famously backed out of the Paris climate accord while his predecessor supported it. Britain’s Labour Party also has a proposal that no new diesel or petrol cars should be sold in the UK by 2030.
The French announcement came right after Volvo said on Wednesday that it planned to build only electric and hybrid vehicles from 2019. On Norway’s vague announcement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was spotted in an ecstatic mood on Twitter.
Comments
Sohi
This is a very dumb move and it is not possible.
KcB
What makes you say that?
Electric cars are very real even now in 2017; This announcement by France and Norway (2 major EU markets) will just push automakers to invest more in non-fuel consuming cars.
It’s a great initiative without a doubt and, I believe, a step in the right direction.
Someone needs to push automakers to invest in green cars and governments who steer their market are the keys.
Farhan
Very much possible.. Tesla has already disrupted this fact in the recent past.
Sohi
@KCB that is not possible first most of the electric vehicles are very expensive 2nd you need a full day to charge them 3rd the oil prices are very low so most of the countries have scrapped their budgets on investing in the electric motor cars.
SMathew
Just another question; From where do most countries generate electricity from to charge these cars? – Fossil fuels, Nuclear etc. The contribution of renewable energy is still negligible.
Secondly, I have heard that the biggest producers of green house gas is livestock. A cow does on overage release between 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year. Methane is a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide (CO2). But the negative effect on the climate of Methane is 23 times higher than the effect of CO2. Therefore the release of about 100 kg Methane per year for each cow is equivalent to about 2’300 kg CO2 per year.
Cattle contributes to 40% of greenhouse emissions whereas cars only 29%.