Paris to outlaw all petrol vehicles by 2030

Fossil fuel cars face same fate as diesel to cut pollution before Olympics

PARIS will deny all petrolfuelled cars access to its streets by 2030, in a move which comes on top of an earlier pledge to bar diesel vehicles by 2024, when the French capital hosts the Olympic Games.

Only electric-powered cars will be allowed into the world’s most visited city if the latest curbs on petrol vehicles – yet to be formally approved – are enforced.

The move was demanded by Anne Hidalgo, the socialist mayor, although she has angered many Parisian drivers

‘Not a ban but a trajectory, which seems both credible and sustainable’

with her efforts to make the traffic-snarled capital a much greener place, notably by adding hundreds of miles of cycle paths and pedestrian-only stretches of the banks of the Seine, as well as organising car-free days.

Ms Hidalgo insists the crackdown on combustion engines is needed to help end the relatively frequent surges in air pollution that already lead authorities in Paris to impose temporary, partial bans on cars.

President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government has already set a target date of 2040 for an end to cars dependent on fossil fuels and this will require faster phase-outs in large cities, Paris’s city hall said.

“This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases,” said Christophe Najdovski, a deputy city mayor responsible for transport policy.

“Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers...so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossilenergy vehicles, by 2030,” he told France Info radio.

The city hall was at pains to point out that its plans were not an attack on cars or a “ban” of any sort, arguing that cars – electric ones – will still be plentiful.

“The aim is no way formulated as a ‘ban’ by 2030, but as a trajectory which seems both credible and sustainable,” the statement added.

Paris was host city for the latest worldwide pact on policies to tame global warming and it had already been eyeing an end to diesel cars in the city before the Olympics are held in almost seven years’ time.

There are about 32million domestic-use cars in France, which has a population of about 66 million, according to 2016 data from the Argus trade publication.

Most Parisians do not own cars but use the reliable and relatively cheap public transport network as well as increasingly popular schemes that offer short-term bike, scooter or electric car rental.

Many cities across the world are considering measures similar to the ones planned in Paris. Only this week, Oxford unveiled plans to ban petrol and diesel cars from its centre as part of the most radical set of proposals yet brought forward in Britain to curb pollution.