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US state bans internal combustion engines

California stands for liberal thinking, original hippies, technical innovations, sun-drenched beaches and surfers. But the state is also breaking new ground in environmental protection in the West - though not entirely voluntarily.

The state of California has been ravaged by forest fires for decades, but now the government there seems to be reacting much more decisively than before. As a result, the State of Western Arts will ban the sale of vehicles with combustion engines from 2035. From that date, only new cars and trucks that are one hundred percent emission-free will be put on the market. The current global warming is being driven by combustion engines - a scientific fact that fortunately only very few people would dispute. "Our cars should not make forest fires any worse," says the incumbent governor of the most populous state in the US, Gavin Newsom (Democrats), in a press release. Washington, on the other hand, had only recently declared its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. But apparently, Newsom has no reason to disregard his personal climate policy ideals. 
The phase-out of climate-damaging combustion technologies is a global movement, to which many European countries such as Great Britain, France and Denmark have already joined. 

A development that apparently not even the big oil lobby can stop. Is the courageous but necessary step from California still in time; or will we inevitably leave the state to the forces of nature in the future?