Motoring may be set to see a Great Reset in 2035, with the German government announcing they want an EU-wide ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.
Combustion engine cars should go the way of the dinosaur from 2035, according to the German government, who have announced they are backing a plan to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars in the EU from that year on.
Despite the country initially resisting Europe-wide legislation pushing for zero-emission cars, the Federal Republic has since about-faced on the idea of a motoring Great Reset, and will join others in the bloc looking to begin phasing out hydrocarbon-burning vehicles by 2035 or earlier.
According to a report by POLITICO, the announcement that Germany will be supporting a Europe-wide ban was to be made during a meeting of EU environment ministers, according to the German Green party’s Steffi Lemke.
“The new German government stands behind the [European] Commission’s draft and thus fully supports the end of the internal combustion engine [for cars and vans] in the EU from 2035,” POLITICO reports the Green Party environment minister, Steffi Lemke, as saying.
“I would have wanted intermediate steps and more ambitious steps,” the minister added, saying that she would prefer the EU proposals had been more hardline — though she noted that the rapid expansion of the electric vehicle market could make it possible to “accelerate” the process of implementing restrictions.
“For vehicle types that are not covered by the CO2 standards — I always take the example of ambulances, or possibly tractors — you will possibly have to find solutions,” Lemke conceded.
“But as far as the standards are concerned, that means new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles [with] internal combustion engines will no longer be allowed after 2035.”
The German state’s new support for a ban on combustion engine cars marks a sizable U-turn for the country, which had previously been resistant to measures limiting vehicle CO2 emissions — likely as a result of the country’s expansive combustion engine-reliant automotive industry.
However, while Germany’s change in policy is significant, it is not exactly unexpected, with the country’s new left-wing coalition having promised to push a green environmentalist agenda during their time in office.
This enthusiasm is not shared by everyone though, and while the new ‘Traffic Light’ coalition government of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and Free Democrats (FDP) may be convinced that a green Great Reset should be pushed to the nth degree, the German population seems to think otherwise, with recent data suggesting that people have serious concerns about their environmental policies.
According to a representative poll of over 1,000 people, 52 per cent of Germans believe that the new government’s climate policy will have an overall negative effect on Germany’s “social climate”.
What’s more, a further 49 per cent believe that the nation’s green agenda will have negative effects for them personally, with that number rising to 61 per cent when only Germans in the east of the country are polled.
On the face of it, these opinions do not appear unreasonable, considering the German government’s unceasing desire to decommission its remaining nuclear power plants despite facing down a serious energy crisis as a result of the spiralling cost of Russian natural gas.
“People give the traffic light government a considerable leap of faith in climate policy,” said Dominic Schwickert, the managing director for the left-liberal think tank who conducted the poll.
“At the same time, there are widespread fears that the climate policy measures will lead to social upheaval.”