Scotland to end sales of diesel, petrol cars by 2032

Scotland has announced they will phase out sales of diesel and petrol vehicles by 2032. Scotland now follows a growing list of counties that have outlined intentions to move away from the internal combustion engine. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, outlined plans to "massively expand" charging points and set up pilot projects to encourage uptake of electric vehicles. If Scotland meets its target, it will do so eight years ahead of the UK as a whole. “Our aim is for new petrol and diesel cars and vans to be phased out in Scotland by 2032,” Ms Sturgeon said. The Government said the commitment was necessary due to the avoidable impact poor air quality was having on people’s health. Jesse Norman, the parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Transport, confirmed the Government’s plans. “The Government has a manifesto commitment for almost all cars and vans on our roads to be zero emission by 2050. We believe this would necessitate all new cars and van being zero emission vehicles by 2040,” Mr Norman said in a written answer to the Commons. The UK government said earlier this year that in the interests of meeting targets under the Paris climate accord and to reduce emissions to zero by 2050, they would end the production of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040. France has an even stricter target, announcing they would ban sales of the internal combustion engine the same year as the UK plans to have them phased out. Earlier this week China also announced it would phase out the combustion engine, and focus on the production of electric vehicles.