Reality check: this is what climate action looks like

We think the advent of fleets of driverless cars in US cities would be radical. Spian's got a much more far reaching idea. Here's what a democratic socialist government is proposing:

Spanish government planning to ban sale of gasoline, diesel cars from 2040
... Transportation in Spain – and in most of the European Union – is the straggler when it comes to the fight against climate change. While the use of renewable energy continues to grow in the power sector – with a realistic target of 100% of electricity coming from clean sources in the future – road transportation is not progressing at the same speed in the fight against climate change.

Just over a quarter of all greenhouse gases emitted in Spain are from the transportation sector, and most of those come from the roads. Forecasts from the government suggest that if measures are not taken, these emissions will grow 15% from here to 2030.

In the draft text presented on Tuesday, the 2040 ban on “passenger and light commercial vehicles with direct emissions of carbon dioxide” would also mean an end to the sale of hybrids, which also burn gasoline or diesel. This kind of veto has already been announced in other EU countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, which have also set a target date of 2040, and Denmark, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, which have set a date of 2030.

El Pais, 11/13/18

The new plan would also ban fracking and end licenses for exploiting carbon fuels (oil and coal) by 2040. The aim is to expand current wind and solar energy production to provide 100 percent of the country's electricity needs by 2050.

Spain's government is a cobbled together coalition in which socialists are dependent on anti-austerity and left populist parties. It's almost certainly fragile. But it seems noteworthy that there is enough social consensus that climate change is a vital emergency that the governing party believes a serious de-carbonization plan can be negotiated.