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France to ban petrol, diesel vehicles by 2040 – Minister

France to ban petrol, diesel vehicles by 2040 – Minister

Mubasher: France is planning to ban the use of all petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles by 2040, The Independent reported, citing French environment minister Nicolas Hulot as saying.

The minister’s announcement coincided with the uncovering of a series of measures, a part of newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron's plan to make France carbon neutral by 2050. 

Under the new scheme, poorer households are set to receive a premium, allowing them to swap their polluting vehicles for clean alternatives.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference, France’s environment minister stated that France would stop using coal to produce electricity by 2022. Around EUR 4 billion in investments will help achieve this plan and boost energy efficiency, he added.

The minister’s statements are part of a five-year-plan to encourage the use of clean energy and fulfil France’s commitments in accordance with the Paris Agreement.

"We want to demonstrate that fighting against climate change can lead to an improvement of French people's daily lives," Hulot stated, noting that the French government aims to maintain its "leadership" in climate policy. 

The announcement follows a disclosure by Volvo on Wednesday, in which the car maker said it was planning to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting 2019.  

Noting that the ambitious scheme will impact the country’s car manufacturers, Hulot highlighted that the government currently had projects that "can fulfil that promise". 

France is not the only country, which seeks to ban the use of combustion-powered cars, as the Netherlands and Norway previously announced that they were looking to ban petrol and diesel-powered vehicles by 2025, while Germany and India announced similar plans ahead of 2030. 

The Paris Agreement aims to bolster global response to the threats of climate change “by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The agreement also seeks to help strengthen countries’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change by setting up a technology framework and an enhanced capacity-building framework to support countries taking action and the most vulnerable nations, the UNFCCC says on its official website.