"Diesel and petrol cars are the past." That was the comment made by Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen on the government's decision to ban the sale of new diesel vehicles from 2030 and hybrid ones from 2035. The commitment was announced during the formal meeting of the Danish government to launch the next climate roadmap to 2050. The aim is to become a zero CO2 emissions country by mid-century, thanks above all to the growth of renewables, with wind energy leading the way. "Of course it's an ambitious target, but it's exactly what we need to try to do," Rasmussen told Parliament last Monday.

How many electric cars are there in Denmark

The Danish market is somewhat contradictory. Services and welfare are sustained by high taxation, as are costs related to energy and water consumption. The same has happened with the electric car: while in 2015, thanks to incentives, 4,662 electric and hybrid vehicles were sold in Denmark, the number then fell to 1,438 before collapsing definitively in 2017, when the current government removed the incentives. Indeed, last year sales did not exceed one thousand units, representing 0.4 per cent of the market. It therefore seems that the goal of reaching 2030 with one million electric vehicles on the road — which would represent half of the current vehicle fleet — is by no means easy to achieve, unless a system of state incentives is reconsidered.

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Some good news sprinkled in: Denmark to ban sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030 on. #FossilFree #Future bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via @markets

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What other countries are doing

The phasing out of diesel-powered cars is also taking place in other cities around the world: France and the United Kingdom have set a target of 2040, while Norway has gone as far as 2025. Here, however, the market is strongly supported by a range of tax deductions. At a local level, more is being done: from Paris to Rotterdam, from Milan to Madrid and Mexico City, many cities are considering banning vehicles powered by fossil fuels, according to various timetables. Denmark's own capital, Copenhagen, wants to ban diesel cars from entering the city as early as next year. The common goal is the same: reducing pollutants and emissions.

And Italy?

In our country around 7,000 electric cars are on the road, roughly 0.1 per cent of the Italian market. While in 2015 around 2,000 new electric cars were sold, the following year a 5 per cent drop was recorded. Hybrids fared better, with a +40 per cent increase in 2016. It therefore seems clear that in order to stimulate the market, a decisive push from the government will be needed to incentivise the scrapping of old vehicles, but above all to work on strengthening and renewing public transport. The point is not to replace every diesel car with an electric one, but to rethink mobility as a whole, starting with private transport.