Vatican to replace car fleet with electric vehicles

The Vatican City State has recently signed a deal with German carmaker Volkswagen to replace its current vehicle fleet with electric cars from the start of 2024.

The partnership aligns with the Vatican’s ‘Ecological Conversion 2030’ plan aimed at reducing CO2 emissions by prioritising sustainable and carbon-neutral technologies in its region – with Volkswagen providing almost 40 fully electric vehicles from its ID range – with the city-state targeting a zero-emission car fleet by 2030.

Volkswagen said the vehicles provided to the Vatican range from ID.3, ID.4 and ID.5 models. Imelda Labbé, a Member of the Board of Management for Sales, Marketing and After-Sales at Volkswagen addressed the importance of this deal in a media statement.

“The electrification of [car] fleets is becoming increasingly important across the globe,” she said.

“The fact that Vatican employees will now also be among our ID drivers in the future is a great target and honour for our brand.”

According to overseas reports, the Vatican will reportedly build charging networks across the areas it controls and is planning to use electricity generated from renewable energy sources – with the Holy State using Volkswagen and Skoda electric vehicles as a “long-term rental formula.”

Pope Francis has made climate change a priority in his papacy, becoming the first pope to speak at a UN climate conference during the upcoming COP28 meeting in Dubai later this year.

His updated 2015 encyclical – a letter generally addressed to the Catholic clergy containing the current pope’s perspective on church teachings – included climate change as a significant problem in the world today.

In the document, Pope Francis criticised world leaders for their lack of efforts to reduce the harmful effects of climate change stating:

“Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change,” he said.

“Many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption ... there is an urgent need to develop policies so that in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gasses can be drastically reduced."