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Amsterdam to Ban All Diesel and Petrol Cars and Motorbikes by 2030

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday May 07 2019, @11:02AM   
from the full-of-electric-eels dept.

inertnet writes:

Amsterdam's head of transport has announced plans to ban petrol and diesel cars in the city by 2030.

The clean air action plan aims to make the Dutch capital a "world leader in emission-free transport".

Transport chief Sharon Dijksma said residents "live a year less on average due to dirty air" and that the plan should "prolong the health of the average Amsterdammer by three months."

But the plan has already incited strong reactions in the Netherlands with one motoring organisation branding it "bizarre" and wondering how normal people would afford electric cars.

The plan, which would be applied 20 years before the Paris Agreement aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions, would require up to 23,000 electric charging points by 2025. The city currently has 3,000.

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Original Submission

• Re:erm? Re:erm? (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 07 2019, @01:14PM (2 children)

  by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday May 07 2019, @01:14PM (#840124)

  > Do you know how much smog I noticed? NONE.

  Surveying a couple of websites: Amsterdam level of PM2.5 is now (1 pm early summer) 8-25 microgram/m^3 . I don't know the time response (daily average? hourly? weekly?) for these random websites:

  https://www.airvisual.com/netherlands/north-holland/amsterdam [airvisual.com]
  http://www.airqualitynow.eu/comparing_city_details.php?amsterdam [airqualitynow.eu]

  The best reference I could quickly find for effect on life expectancy was this one:

  https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.8b00360 [acs.org]

  Figure 3 shows 20 microgram/m^3 leads to a bit more than 0.5 year decrease in life expectancy. This is same order of magnitude as TFA which claims 1 year less life expectancy.

  So, while there may be much less pollution in Amsterdam than where you live, the death toll from air pollution in Amsterdam is still reasonably high. Where you live, it is probably even worse - think about that for a moment and consider moving!

  Parent

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• Re:erm? Re:erm? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:22PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @06:22PM (#840323)

  Wow.

  So first, I live in rural Quebec, and drive in (when I need to) the city. Which is rare.

  But in terms of your first link? I'm gobsmacked. I compared Toronto, to Amsterdam with the same site:

  https://www.airvisual.com/canada/ontario/toronto [airvisual.com]

  19, versus 33?! I don't get it.

  Toronto? 3M. Greater Toronto Area? 6M! And we LOVE CARS. A lot!

  Amsterdam? 800k Greater Amsterdam? 2.5M? Maybe?

  Very, very strange.

  Now bear in mind, people in Europe often get very, very confused because they see "CARS!!!" and yell "AHHHH!".

  But we have very good public transit in our cities. Toronto has subways, buses, trains, street cars, well.. everything heh.

  But I wonder... I really, really wonder... Toronto has more "fast moving" traffic at rush hour. And outside of rush hour? It has ALL fast moving traffic!

  I wonder if all those cars idling in Amsterdam are the problem? Or, are there coal plants all over the place?

  It's *weird*. What's with the pollution? Makes no sense!

  Parent

  • Re:erm? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @06:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @06:39AM (#840665)

    So. Wierd.
    It's.
    Like.
    You Do;nt
    Know.
    Amything?

    Parent