Instead of outright banning all cars, why not ban only the polluting ones, essentially allowing only EVs in cities? That would also accelerate the long-term goal of cleaning up the city of smog, which is what they're trying to do with these "no-car days", because people would dump their polluting cars faster.
If the no-car days don't drive people to dump their cars too fast or at all, then these acts will be just symbolic anyway and won't have much effect on city pollution.
> There's no end in sight and I don't know how we turn around from this trend
Various european cities have bans on certain car categories and expand the bans further on smog days. If widespread enough it might drive people to choose cars that would still allow them to drive on such days, e.g. electrics.
I agree with your assessment, but I don't agree that this ban is it. The headline really oversells it. The actual rule from the article's body is: "All petrol vehicles registered before 2000 and diesel ones registered before 2006 will be banned from the area, unless they are used by residents of the area or meet other exemptions."
They only plan to ban enough polluting vehicles to "cut nitrogen dioxide levels by 23% in 2020", so this is a very far cry from EV only. I think this is a step in the right direction, but it seems like a convoluted one that could be a whole lot more ambitious.
I don't understand this concept of banning cars, especially by removing parking spaces from cities under the pretext of a reduced environmental footprint. Norway is on the forefront of the EV revolution, so they can go "green" by just banning gasoline cars.
There seems to be a second movement hidden behind the climate debate and it's keen on removing private transport altogether (except bicycles, for now), apparently driven by people with a particular urban hipster lifestyle. This is a massive reduction of comfort, a burden for families with small children and people with disabilities, as well as businesses and logistics.
Did the alternative suddenly become banning all EVs? No, the alternative is to not ban any type of car. Unless everyone attempts an embargo all at once, you will have backup options in that case.
Non-electric cars will be banned in most inner cities probably within the decade because of their pollution, sort of a parallel with how horses were banned earlier.
I'm not opposed to limiting car space in favor of people space, but I also see EVs as a solution if the problem is emissions. No need to ban all cars, just gas-powered ones.
You can buy electric scooters nowadays that can drive a lot farther than any car with the same battery. If one was big on emission reduction, one would ban all cars and only allow scooters.
Obviously reducing private car usage is a priority. I don't have a car, never owned one, and I'm absolutely in favour of severe restrictions.
Now, you have to acknowledge the world we live in, a total ban won't be feasible in the time-frame that we have to combat climate change. (And neither will an electric grid sufficiently powerful to power millions of green hydrogen-powered vehicles or 5-ton SUVs for that matter).
Not all EVs weigh 5 tons. Promoting (smaller) EVs for people who need them is a good thing.
Electric cars are still extremely polluting. Tire and break dust is the majority of pm 2.5 particulate pollution in US cities and there is a growing body of research that shows reducing these emissions is a huge impact on our general cognitive ability and happiness (particulate air pollution makes us statistically significantly dumber). As with anything, I’m pretty happy with allowing what the market will support. Accurately pricing parking and making people pay the market rate for parking will drastically reduce car use. This is the plan is Paris (reducing free parking) We don’t need to ban cars, we just need to stop subsidizing them.
Because banning fossil fuels would make a huge number of vehicles worthless overnight. It's too much change too quickly. Banning new ice cars will lead to a more tolerable and gradual shift. Furthermore, a hypothetical rule saying that old cars can use cheap fossil gas, but new cars have to use expensive synthetic gas would be impossible to police.
I think bans are a pretty terrible idea. It implies that the alternatives aren't good enough. But due to the bans people will be forced to use them anyway.
It's great if you're an EV manufacturer though because you can rack up your price and customers won't have much of an alternative. Bonus points if the government also bans imports of EVs from certain other countries.
Even if this isn't the objective, it nevertheless is a way people will see the whole situation as.
If the no-car days don't drive people to dump their cars too fast or at all, then these acts will be just symbolic anyway and won't have much effect on city pollution.
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