City bans propel diesel's demise in Europe

With urban pollution rising up the political agenda, high emissions and a poor public image could prove terminal for the road fuel

Things are not going well for the diesel industry in Europe. A court decision—made on 27 February—allowing German cities to ban diesel cars was followed a day later by news that Rome wants to ban the fuel's use in its city centre by 2024. Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have also all announced plans to ban the fuel from city centres by 2025. Germany's Federal Administrative Court ruled that cities can ban diesel-fuelled cars to tackle local air pollution, rather than wait for a national standard to be developed. That makes it more likely that cities with high levels of pollutants—including nitrogen oxides (NOx)—such as Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Munich and Cologne, could follow suit. As OE