Paris authorities plan to ban by 2030 all combustion-engine cars – including those fuelled by both diesel and petrol – an official at Paris City Hall said on Thursday. “This is about planning for the long term with a strategy that will reduce greenhouse gases,” said Christophe Najdovski, an official responsible for transport policy at the office of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

Engine vehicles

“Transport is one of the main greenhouse gas producers … so we are planning an exit from combustion engine vehicles, or fossil-energy vehicles, by 2030,” Najdovski told France Info radio.

The French capital, which will host the Olympic games in the summer of 2024 and was host city for the latest worldwide pact on policies to tame global warming, had already been eyeing an end to diesel cars in the capital by the time of that event.

But a ban on petrol-fuelled vehicles marks a radical escalation of policy in the world’s most visited city. Cars that run on electricity would not affected.