Spain tightens noose on emissions

Madrid has announced a radical scheme to cut its air pollution by 40 per cent and the biggest losers will be owners of older cars. Then newer cars. Then all internal-combustion cars.

Without specifically banning them, the Spanish capital has effectively outlawed every pre-2006 diesel and every pre-2000 petrol car from its historic and business centre from 2020.

But the laws are set to get progressively tighter until every internal-combustion-engined car is banned as well, with only zero-emission plug-in hybrids, EVs and fuel-cell EVs allowed into the city.

The banned list will be derived by a new emissions test set up by Madrid’s local government. It will be organized by thermal-imaging cameras set up on every entry point into the city (most European cities have similar systems already in place) and owners of older cars will only be allowed to enter if they can prove they have private parking.

Unless their owners can prove their residency, older models are simply ineligible for a permit to enter the city, with Madrid expecting to reduce the traffic load by up to 20 percent at a stroke.

It isn’t the first European city to take radical steps on older cars, with Paris banning all pre-1997 cars from the centre on weekdays and both Stockholm and London already using congestion charging as a defacto way to fight air pollution.