Sales of vehicles powered by fossil fuel engines could come to an abrupt stop in the Netherlands, as the Dutch parliament mulls banning new gasoline and diesel-powered cars to be commercialized.
According to Dutch News, the lower house of the parliament supported a proposal from the Labour PvdA party to ban all non-sustainable vehicles in 2025.
Despite strong opposition from the right-wing VVD faction the motion passed. If it eventually becomes a law, manufacturers won’t be allowed to sell any cars bar all-electric and hydrogen-powered ones.
On the other hand, the VVD opposing party leader Halbe Zijlstra considers it unrealistic.
"It seems crazy to get this plan to work. I think we’ll have to withdraw from the Energy Agreement”, he said.
The agreement is a consensus signed in 2013 by the Dutch government and 40 other organizations agreeing to promote green energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Naturally, PvdA disagrees, considering the plan feasible, especially with the rapid developing pace of the technology: "That agreement runs until 2023, we are free in what we do after that", commented its leader Diederik Samsom. "We are ambitious; perhaps other parties are less so”.
Emission-free powerplants are indeed the future, yet the conventional engines' demise might come sooner than we originally though.