New vehicles powered wholly by petrol and diesel will no longer be sold in the UK from 2030.
The UK is second behind Norway, who will ban the sale of new fossil fuel powered vehicles from 2025.
It’s part of the Prime Minister’s plan for a “green industrial revolution” to tackle climate change.
This revolution will include a move from fossil fuel to renewable and clean energy in the form of wind farms, heat pumps and hydrogen, and nuclear power.
Hundreds of thousands of new “green jobs” will be created says Boris Johnson.
A key point of the plan with relation to private transport is a £1.3bn investment in electric vehicle (EV) charging points. Grants for people buying electric vehicles will increase to help people make the transition.
Many of the details of the plan will be written into an energy white paper proposing future legislation, which is expected by the end of the month.
But critics point out that the amount allocated for the green revolution - £4 billion – is relatively small and dwarfed by the projected cost of the high speed rail project HS2 at £100 billion.
The Government says that HS2 is a key part of the jigsaw in the country’s transport system becoming carbon neutral, as it will mean that more freight can be taken off the roads as passenger trains move off the existing routes and onto the high speed line.
But opponents of HS2 say the project will take 120 years to ‘pay back’ its own carbon footprint – and that in connecting people more efficiently to airports in the midlands, it will have the effect of encouraging use of air travel.