The municipal leadership in the Danish capital voted on Thursday evening to ban external combustion vehicles on Indre Vesterbro, thus some of the city's most central areas.
According to the plan, the zone will be introduced within two years for passenger cars and 2028 for commercial traffic. But in any case, in the first stage, it includes vehicles coming from outside, not residents in the area.
Can affect directly
The climate gain with such a zone is estimated to be 17,400 tons of carbon dioxide per year, writes the news agency Ritzau, and the goal is also to reduce both noise and levels of health-hazardous particles in Copenhagen.
A lot of preparations remain. But the industry organization Mobility Denmark points out that even Denmark's second-largest city, Århus, has adopted similar plans and that the market can interpret the signals already now.
"We believe that the zero-emission zones will affect car sales immediately, because car owners want a car that can be driven wherever they want – even if it's two or three years", comments the CEO Mads Rørvig in a press release.
Unclear in Stockholm
Denmark has already surpassed Sweden in the share of new electric cars, and currently, two out of three Danish new car buyers choose a combustion-free model. And now the Danes may even get ahead with the environmental zones.
A number of municipalities in Sweden, including Malmö, Gothenburg, and Stockholm, are planning similar measures. Stockholm has come the farthest and had planned to start with a small area at the latest year-end. But the decision was rejected by the county administrative board and while awaiting a decision in a higher instance, it is unclear when the zone can be introduced.
