French President Emmanuel Macron’s administration plans on banning all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040. The European nation’s newly-appointed Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot (pictured above) said the government wants to make France carbon neutral by 2050.
Hulot said domestic car manufacturers had projects that could “fulfil the promise”, while acknowledging that the deadline would be a challenge for the companies. The minister added that France would stop using coal to produce electricity by 2022, and that up to €4 billion (around Rs 30,000 crore) of investments will help to boost energy efficiency.
The French government plans on offering incentives for this programme, such as providing low-income households with a premium to exchange their petrol or diesel vehicles for cleaner alternatives.
The development follows Swedish car manufacturer Volvo’s announcement that it would only sell fully electric or hybrid models after 2019.
The announcements are part of a five-year-plan to encourage clean energy and fulfil the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. Hulot said the government wanted to maintain the country’s “leadership” in the climate policy.
“We want to demonstrate that fighting against climate change can lead to an improvement of French people’s daily lives,” he said.
France is not the only country that aims to ban combustion-powered cars. The Netherlands and Norway had earlier said that they wanted to get rid of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2025, and Germany and India had announced similar plans ahead of 2030.
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