From 2024, the city of Rome will no longer see diesel cars circulating in the historic centre. Meanwhile, in Germany, the administrative court will grant municipalities the freedom to block diesel vehicles.
Rome has made its decision: no more diesel-fuelled cars from 2024. A historic decision for Italy, which comes at the same time as the German administrative court's ruling to allow municipalities with higher levels of air pollution to ban diesel vehicles from circulating.
More specifically, the decision concerns the historic centre of the city of Rome, a move aimed at reducing the number of vehicles in circulation, starting with the most polluting ones, as well as cutting the pollutants that attack the historic monuments the Italian capital is the envy of the world for.
The decision was announced by Rome's mayor during a speech in Mexico City at the C40 Women for Climate summit, an event dedicated to women and the environment. It is a choice that emerged from the debate sparked by the scandal over rigged emissions tests on diesel-engine cars and their connection to air pollution in cities, which has now exceeded legal limits and the thresholds tolerable for human health.
This decision aligns with the choice by the automotive group Fca to abandon the production of diesel vehicles from 2022, while other carmakers — German ones in particular — will need to rethink their market strategies.
Rome thus joins other European cities that are mobilising to put a stop to the most polluting vehicles, including diesels — among them Athens, Madrid, Paris, Copenhagen, Stuttgart and Oslo. "Raggi's announcement responds positively to the campaign that Greenpeace has been running for months, directed at the Rome city government as well as at Milan, Turin and Palermo," says Andrea Boraschi, head of Greenpeace Italy's Transport campaign. "We asked for a clear signal, a deadline for the most polluting engine technology — the one most harmful to the environment and to health — that would above all serve to steer the market. That signal has now come, and we hope it will discourage Roman citizens from buying diesel cars from this moment on; just as we hope similar measures will soon be adopted by all other Italian cities."
The environmental organisation is calling for progressive restrictions on diesel circulation to be introduced even before 2024, "so as not to leave good intentions to a date on the calendar, but instead to demonstrate a concrete commitment, starting now."