Twenty years ago, London began to take action to curb sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and on Sunday, Parisians will vote on whether to triple the cost of parking SUVs to squeeze these gas-guzzling vehicles out of the city.
The proposal of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is the most radical in the fight against large vehicles in the big cities, which are accused of driving up fuel emissions, posing a threat to pedestrians and taking up too much space.
Since 2010, the number of SUVs on the global road has increased almost sevenfold to about 3300 million vehicles.
In a 2023 report, the IEA said that they burn about 20 more fuel than a typical mid-size car and emitted nearly 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2022, about twice Brazil's total emissions.
London took the lead against SUVs
The bashing of SUVs and large pickup trucks dates back to the 2000s, when the suburban wealthy began a massive migration from sedans to "road lords" designed for rough terrain.
Calling them "trade tractors" in Norway and "suburban assault vehicles" in the UK, these trucks have become a much-criticized status symbol.
A key breakthrough in regulating emissions in large cities occurred in 2003, when London's left-wing mayor, Ken Livingstone, introduced congestion charges for vehicles entering the city centre.
A year later, he targeted SUVs specifically, criticizing those who use these vehicles to pick up and drop off children as "complete idiots" and saying they should be banned from picking up and dropping off children from schools.
Guerrilla tactics
Inspired by London, Paris initially proposed a ban on the most polluting vehicles.
But in 2005, the project was shelved due to fierce opposition from the Automobile Association.
In 2007, the authorities in Dublin accepted the problem and proposed to double the parking fee for SUVs. They were also forced to give in after a public outcry.
Environmental activists in countries such as France and Sweden stepped in between 2005 and 2007 and launched a large-scale campaign to flatten SUV tires.
Over the past few years, they have become more aggressive, with a British group called "Tire Fire Extinguishers" drilling holes in the tires of dozens of SUVs.
Punitive parking and registration fees
As global warming reaches critical levels and SUVs are blamed for the increase in pedestrian deaths in the United States, lawmakers are once again taking action against SUVs.
Last year, Washington, D.C., raised the registration fee for super-large SUVs, requiring owners of vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds (about 2,700 kilograms) to pay $500 (about 460 euros) a year, almost seven times the cost of a typical sedan.
New York is also considering increasing weight-based registration fees.
In Germany, the eco-friendly mayor of the city of Tübingen, which aims to be climate-neutral by 2030, raised parking fees for SUVs by 600 in 2022 and declared that they were unnecessary for city life.
But Freiburg, another city in Germany, had to withdraw its proposal after the Federal Administrative Court rejected the parking fee for longer vehicles**.
At the same time, London has become an "ultra-low emission zone", with cars that do not meet its emission standards paying $12 per day£5 ($16) to enter the city.
London and a number of other places, including Bath and North East Somerset, have also introduced emissions-based parking fees.