Last month, the prime minister of Denmark announced that the country will be banning the sale of new gasoline and diesel-fueled cars in 2030 as a means of reducing their carbon footprint.

Denmark hopes to have more than 1 million hybrid and electric vehicles on the roads before the ban goes into effect. Legislators say that they will be incentivizing the transition by making EVs more affordable and opening up their bus lanes to cleaner vehicles.

Though the Nordic country does not produce any of their own cars, they reportedly plan on collaborating with other EU nations to pressure automakers into manufacturing more electric vehicles, as reported by Bloomberg.

“I’m convinced that many Danes want to drive a green car if it’s affordable,” said Tax Minister Karsten Lauritzen, according to Bloomberg Environment. “So we want to support that development.”

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If successful, the initiative will contribute to Denmark’s commitment to being carbon-free by 2050.

Denmark is not the first country to pass such sweeping legislation targeting fossil fuel cars, either – France is banning the use of petrol and gas-powered cars by 2040. Norway, on the other hand, is taking it one step further by banning the sale of all non-electric cars by 2025.

In order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of low-emission vehicles, Norway plans on constructing at least one charging station for every 10 electric cars on the road, amounting to at least 50,000 by 2020.

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Though it is unclear whether these charging stations would still be powered by fossil fuel or coal plants, there are nevertheless numerous environmental benefits to exclusively using hybrid or electric cars.

According to Sherry Boschert, author of “Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America”, using hybrids and electric cars that draw power from the traditional electric grid would drastically reduce the amount of nitrous oxide released into the air by 32% to 99%. Nitrogen oxides have proven to be very dangerous, with negative effects on people’s health as well as the environment.

Switching to low emission vehicles could also reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 17% to 71%, depending on the area.

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