Britain Looks to Ban All Petrol and Diesel Vehicles

Shoppers walk past stores on New Bond Street in London, Britain July 9, 2016.

 

Britain aims to ban petrol and diesel cars in the country from 2040 as a sign of their commitment to reduce the rising level of nitrogen oxide in the world for a safer humanity.

The pledge is in line with Emmanuel Macron’s efforts in France as they also are working towards a much-anticipated clean air plan.

Government officials in Britain believe that the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK is poor air quality, costing 2.7 billion pounds in lost productivity in recent years.

Europe Moves to Ban Internal Combustion

The Independent reports that France will ban gasoline-powered vehicles by 2040. The Independent is foolish enough to think that this is good news:

France plans to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, the country’s new environment minister has announced.

Nicolas Hulot made the announcement as he unveiled a series of measures as part of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make the country carbon neutral by 2050.

Rosneft – The new star of Russian energy

In Energy Strategy-2030 of Russia, enacted at the end of 2009, it was stated that Moscow would put emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region in its energy exports in the coming years. Petrol and petroleum exports going to this region were targeted to be raised from 6% to 22-25% of total exports, and currently non-existing natural gas export to this region to 19-20% scale of total natural gas export. This Asia-Pacific opening is part of Moscow’s strategy to increase national revenues while promoting economic development in East Siberia and the Russia Far East, and, as well as to stem these regions’ chronic emigration problem. Also, increasing negotiating margin in its economic cooperation with EU by operating new oil and gas pipelines to the East also constitutes an important column of this strategy.

Rosneft, Russia’s newest energy giant, is a key pillar of this initiative. As one of Putin’s favoured firms, Rosneft owes a great deal of its success to Kremlin’s state-centred energy strategy — itself a part of a larger strategy to re-establish Russia as a global power. In that context, efforts to develop the company seem to have gained pace over the past years, and Russia’s currently rank, first with its 12.7 share in world oil production as of 2012, would likely to stay same, at least in short term.