France will 'ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040'

Environment minister unveils five-year-plan to fulfil country’s commitments under Paris Agreement

Chloe Farand from the UK Independent

France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s new environment minister has announced.

Nicolas Hulot made the announcement as he unveiled a series of measures as part of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.

Mr Hulot said he recognised the target would put pressure on France’s car manufacturers, but he said they currently had projects which “can fulfil that promise”.

As part of the plan, poorer households will receive a premium so they can swap their polluting vehicles for clean alternatives.

The announcement comes after Volvo said on Wednesday it planned to built only electric and hybrid vehicles from 2019.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Hulot told reporters France would stop using coal to produce electricity by 2022 and that up to €4bn of investments will help to boost energy efficiency.

The announcements are part of a five-year-plan to encourage clean energy and fulfil the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Mr Hulot said the government wanted to maintain the country’s “leadership” in 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 which aims to ban combustion-powered cars. The Netherlands and Norway previously said they wanted to get rid of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2025 and Germany and India announced similar plans ahead of 2030.

Read the rest here:

Hat Tip / Roger Sowell

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Stephen Richards
July 9, 2017 1:28 am

France has several problems around its generation. We are currently building new nuclear (1, I think) otherwise the whole fleet is aging rapidly. By 2025 we will be forced to shut at least 10 stations just through age alone. With high taxes and high government spending we do not have the funds to build more new nuclear.
The filthy greens are embedded in the government system by Nature 2000 and the whole of western Europe is caught up in the green madness.
I think we will go the way of Australia and California.
Lastly, if, as all economists are saying, the EEU collapses then none of this will matter.

flynn
July 9, 2017 1:28 am
conservative educator
Reply to  flynn
July 9, 2017 8:50 am

Love it!

mwhite
July 9, 2017 1:33 am

Does this include the ships and aircraft that go in and out of France???
Does this include the trucks that carry goods around and through the country???
Does this include those vehicles that are essential to farming???
Just a few questions.

Reply to  mwhite
July 9, 2017 2:18 am

Good questions. Looks like US climate scientists have to cross the Atlantic by sail.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/10/french-president-offers-us-climate-scientists-e1-5-million-each-to-move-to-france/

Old Goat
July 9, 2017 1:42 am

It won’t happen. Macron will be gone in five years – once the French public at large get wind of his master plan, he’ll be history. A lot of fuel will also be wasted torching vehicles in the banlieues.

Ed Zuiderwijk
July 9, 2017 1:57 am

Won’t survive the next president. As one commentator had it: Why don’t they ban the CD rom at the same time?

Sandy In Limousin
July 9, 2017 2:14 am

France has started a scheme, currently mandatory is certain areas, of categorizing and controlling access to cities by ICE powered vehicles. This is called CritAir Air Quality Certificate.
https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/en/
Although only partially mandatory I would imagine that bored gendarmes stopping foreign vehicles will take delight in applying fixed penalty fines on the basis that tourist like going into major cities.

Reply to  Sandy In Limousin
July 9, 2017 2:39 am

Although only partially mandatory I would imagine that bored gendarmes stopping foreign vehicles will take delight in applying fixed penalty fines on the basis that tourist like going into major cities.

Strasbourg perhaps being one of those. Many EU parliamentarians already proclaim their preference having the plenary sessions in Belgium or Luxembourg instead of Strasbourg – to a point some pick a hotel in Germany during the session week and cross the border daily by car. This might well be the last straw for them too.

Auto
Reply to  Sandy In Limousin
July 9, 2017 2:07 pm

A bit of publicity following the first few stops, and many tourists will change to –
” the basis that tourist like going into major cities outside France”.
France gets a huge number of tourists.
Many spend quite heavily – especially since French prices inflated, not-so-gently, after the Euro.
A significant reduction – not unlikely – would harm French profits, employment, and – of course – tax collection.
But no doubt the Holidaying Hulot has a plan . . . . . .
May I recommend this cunning plan –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsXKS8Nyu8Q
Auto
Enjoy

Robertvd
July 9, 2017 2:29 am

If nothing changes by 2040 we will live in a biometric controlled cashless hell house. Much worse than ‘1984’ . Puppet politicians will have become a thing of the past. We can only pray for another Carrington event.

ImranCan
July 9, 2017 4:17 am

How are Italians and Spanish supposed to dtive to the UK ?? And vice-versa. So much for open borders and integration.

Auto
Reply to  ImranCan
July 9, 2017 2:13 pm

Or via Austria and Germany, the Netherlands, then Belgium, for the Italians.
The Spanish have a slightly longer option –
Ferry to Morocco, Algeria, (carry enough water), Tunisia, Libya (carry enough AK47s), , Egypt, Israel, ferry to Cyprus; ferry to Italy; then as above.
Will really boost their CO2 emissions and car servicing needs, but possibly not their acceptance in the UK, going via many N. African states.
Possibly not.
Auto

Bruce Cobb
July 9, 2017 4:28 am

Greenie “Leaders” are doubling down on stupid now, wallowing in and trying to out virtue-signal one another, in a frantic attempt to try to shame Trump, and the US. It’s both hilarious and sad. Charles de Gaulle must be rolling in his grave about now.

Coeur de Lion
July 9, 2017 4:31 am

I’m sure it’s been said above but I drive to SW France and back twice a year or more and see these vast ten wheel articks coming up from Spain on their way to Paris and elsewhere full of Spanish goodies – hundreds of them! How do you battery-power an artick? The diesel engine is quite safe, never fear.

HR
July 9, 2017 4:58 am

I laughed so hard when I read this article. The release is typical of the elitist twits that have run the French economy into the ground and ate now desperate to be bailed out by Germany. I would love to see France ban German built diesel or petrol cars while holding their hands for German cash. The country is a joke run by jokes like Macron who sleazed his way through the G20 leaders so as to end up standing alongside President Trump for the photo shoot. The French would not even have a car industry of note if it was not being propped up by the French government.

Gamecock
July 9, 2017 5:58 am

‘France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s new environment minister has announced.’
How bold.
Try predicting something imminent.

JB Say
July 9, 2017 6:21 am

All of France riding around in golf carts. Another reason to laugh at the French.

Dr. Strangelove
July 9, 2017 6:21 am

Good! I can use my Race Girl dragster in France. It doesn’t burn petrol and diesel. It burns nitromethane and produces only 6,000 HP 🙂
http://www.goracegirl.com/images/racegirl-dragster-seattle.jpg

Michael darby
Reply to  Dr. Strangelove
July 9, 2017 6:48 am

Kind of hard to parallel park that beast.

SMC
Reply to  Dr. Strangelove
July 9, 2017 9:55 am

You might have a few issues in stop and traffic…

SMC
Reply to  SMC
July 9, 2017 9:55 am

dang it…stop and go traffic…

July 9, 2017 6:29 am

Where are they going to put all the horse manure?

MarkW
July 9, 2017 8:29 am

I appreciate that France is willing to serve up it’s people as sacrifices to the futility of electric vehicles.

conservative educator
July 9, 2017 8:48 am

Has anyone addressed how many millions of man hours will be spent/wasted waiting for the e-vehicles to recharge? How far will a semi rig hauling 80,000 GVW travel running on batteries? Pulling its load in the Alps or Pyrenees? Is a plane a vehicle? A boat or ship? How about military trucks, tanks, artillery haulers, Bradleys, etc? (“Sorry Sarge. We need to stop the battle for 7 hours while we recharge our tanks.”)

Reply to  conservative educator
July 9, 2017 8:56 am

The batteries will run on petrol.

July 9, 2017 8:52 am

The French have drawn an Imagino Line.

Reply to  Max Photon
July 9, 2017 8:54 am

Sacré bleu … Imaginot Line.

Auto
Reply to  Max Photon
July 9, 2017 2:20 pm

Max
Plus plus double plus!
Didn’t spill wine this time.
Much appreciated.
#
Auto

Kpar
July 9, 2017 8:52 am

“I cannot imagine a more stupid or dangerous way of making decisions that by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”- Dr. Thomas Sowell.

Steve Borodin
July 9, 2017 8:53 am

I wonder what the French is for schadenfreude? I shall be grinning anyway.

Steve Borodin
July 9, 2017 8:57 am

P.S. I’ve just got a good deal on ex-soviet nuclear subs. Can I get them up the Seine as far as Paris?

Auto
Reply to  Steve Borodin
July 9, 2017 2:28 pm

Steve,
Yes – if they have wheels.
The Seine is quite deep for a way – I took a 30 foot draft tanker up a bit in 1973 – Tancarville???. Should check [verify – not pay out]
Mind, excessive CAGW rainfall, so erosion, so silting, will have changed it utterly since then.
Mods – Sarc].
But wheels, and demountable conning towers [‘sails’], are necessary expenses.
Auto

Bob Hoye
July 9, 2017 2:28 pm

MarkW
In a way earlier post, you ask about the difference between socialism and fascism.
The way I’ve looked at its that: Communism is international socialism. Fascism is national socialism.
There is a good description of all the “isms”. In an authoritarian system “That which is not prohibited, is compulsory.”

Auto
July 9, 2017 2:37 pm

Petit Couronne – Rouen, more or less. Sorry.
Wheels for sure. Also a fo9lding conning tower.
Also a ‘Harry Potter ‘Shrinking Potion’ I think.
I did a river cruise from Nantes, up the Loire, and the ship had a loaded draft of 80 centimetres – about 2 feet eight inches. Don’t think the Seine is so restricted.
But wheels Will be need34ed. No matter how good a price you are getting . . . . . . . . .
Auto

GW
July 9, 2017 2:37 pm

GOOD !!!
More gasoline available for my Big Block musclecars !!!

Edward Katz
July 9, 2017 6:25 pm

The further into the future implementation of such plans are, the more grandiose they tend to be. All sorts of things can happen during the next 23 years; one of them could be that the various nations realize that achieving the current climate goals will be increasingly remote. Another could be a consumer backlash against higher prices brought on by Green demands. A third could be a change of government to one that’s not so friendly toward climate change initiatives. A fourth could be some new technology that’s superior to electric vehicles, etc. Incidentally, does France also plan to ban heavy trucks and equipment, railway locomotives, ships and jet aircraft and replace them with batteries?