While many European nations had previously decided to ban the sale of internal combustion-engined vehicles by 2030 or 2035 in most cases, now some 30 countries, as well as automakers, agreed to stop permitting the sale of ICE vehicles after the year 2040. The agreement was reached during the United Nations’ COP26 conference on climate change, that is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, but many important names did not take the pledge.
Right now the automakers that have agreed to the pledge are Ford, General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, China’s BYD and India’s Tata Motors. Some of these manufacturers have already made their own pledges to not have ICE in their range even sooner - the year 2030 in Volvo’s case, while Mercedes’ parent company Daimler has said it will have a CO2-free fleet of vehicles by 2039.
The United States, Germany or China did not take the pledge, while on the automakers’ side, names such as Volkswagen, Stellantis, Toyota. In Germany’s case, officials said that they did not adhere because there was still no internal consensus on the matter, and that the country’s position would be clarified at a later date.
The countries that have so far agreed to the 2040 ICE ban pledge are: Austria, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Finland, Ghana, Kenya, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Rwanda, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uruguay.
There are also several major non-automotive companies that also signed, including UK retailer Sanisbury’s, as well as the ride-hailing company Uber, and even cities that signed independently of what had been decided in their countries - Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo, as well as the South Korean capital, Seoul.
More on the ICE ban
Source: Reuters
