DIESEL-ENGINE cars and other vehicles will be banned from Madrid city from the year 2025, following the example of Paris and México DF.
An unprecedented agreement has been reached by all parties in the city council in a bid to improve air quality and health.
Some three million people die every year as a direct result of air pollution, which causes respiratory and circulatory problems and cancer.
All three cities have pledged to offer incentives for the use of 'alternative' vehicles, such as electric cars, and to encourage walking and cycling, and set up infrastructure for pushbikes.
And Paris' mayoress Anne Hidalgo – who is in fact Spanish and was born in Cádiz – says climate change and pollution are among 'the greatest challenges of our time'.
Mme Hidalgo has been named chairwoman of the global warming world leadership group made up of 40 cities, known as the C40.
“Reducing greenhouse gases generated by world cities will mean the air we and our children and our elderly breathe is cleaner and we will all be healthier as a result,” Madrid's mayoress Manuela Carmena says.
Madrid, Paris and México DF will not be the world's first to ban diesel-engine vehicles – the Norwegian capital, Oslo, aims to do so six years earlier, in 2019.
