More than half of Spaniards will live with low emission zones in 2023

The decision of Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) of canceling the Low Emissions Zone of Barcelona, ​​based on the lack of reports that support some of the restrictions adopted, goes against the sign of the times, tending to expand the areas in which access is prohibited to vehicles that most pollute with the aim of improving the air quality urban and values maximum pollution permitted by the EU, which in Spain are systematically breached.

The climate change and energy transition lawapproved by the Congress of Deputies last May, requires all municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to install this type of mechanism, called ZBE, before 2023. That is to say, in just over nine months, a minimum of 149 localities, in which 53% of the Spanish population, They will have such an area.

From here, the norm does not detail how cities should apply the new measure. There are different models in the European context. In Spanish, only two. the of Barcelona, where the ZBE, which extends to almost the entire city and nearby cities, restricts access to cars without a label according to the classification of the General Directorate of Traffic (gasoline cars registered before 2000 and diesel before 2006) between 07:00 and 20:00 during working days. On Madrid, instead, the area occupies much less space, but incorporate more limitations: It only allows residents and vehicles with an Eco label (hybrids in general) or Zero (electric or hybrid with a range of more than 40 kilometers) to enter the center of the capital.

The law leaves it open. The guidelines for the affected municipalities issued last November by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) They also do not determine a minimum extension for these areas, which will depend on each municipality. The document, even so, indicates that the extension must be “significant and sufficient for the fulfillment of the objectives & rdquor ;. At the same time, it identifies different models, both structural, which can be uniform in specific areas or gradual by concentric areas, and complementary, as they can affect, for example, college campuses and business parks, or to specific streets where certain circumstances concur.

Nor is it detailed what types of vehicles will be restricted. Again, “it will depend on each case, the restrictions must be designed so that they make it possible to achieve the objectives & rdquor ;, explains the ministry, which at the end of August approved 1,000 million euros in aid for municipalities to create these zones, buy electric buses and build or expand bike lanes and pedestrian areas.

almost everything is still to do in most of the affected cities. Nothing guarantees that all of them will comply with the standard within the set period. In 2023, moreover, there will be municipal elections throughout the State, something that can stop some consistories from applying these measures in their territories, due to their unpopularity among some voters.

An optional fee

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In any case, the effort does not stop here. The preliminary bill for sustainable mobilityapproved by the Council of Ministers at the beginning of March and which still has a long haul to enter into force, it contemplates the possibility, but without any obligation, that municipalities charge a fee to vehicles that enter low emission zones, a measure that is not unusual in Europe. The large Nordic cities, such as Stockholm and Oslo, they already apply it, and they also do it London and Milan.

And last Friday, just three days before the judicial blow to the ZBE of Barcelona, ​​the Generalitat, town councils, county councils, infrastructure managers and various entities brought a little further what is included in the climate change law. They agreed that in 2025 the 67 Catalan cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants must have a perimeter where the dirtiest vehicles are not allowed to enter.