The EU “Fit-For-55″ resolution provisions the banning of fossil-fuel-vehicle sales beyond 2035, sparking a heated debate due to its uncertain effectiveness in reducing CO2 emissions globally. Nevertheless, the EU shift towards zero-emission vehicles has the potential to decrease urban nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution that is closely linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and to increased mortality.

This paper aims to simulate the impact that the EU zero-emission-mobility policy is expected to have, post-transitional period, on urban NO2 and health outcomes.

The analysis exploits some unique features of Northern-Italy air-pollution data and the Italian Covid-19 lockdown that is leveraged as a natural experiment to mimic the fossil-fuel traffic abatement expected by the policy. Our estimates are obtained by developing a novel intertemporal-statistical-matching approach specifically suited for quasi-experimental evaluations in the context of air-pollution multivariate time series.

We find that the lockdown led to a mean NO2 reduction of 13.62 μg/m³ (53 % from a baseline of 25.8 μg/m³), translating into a simulated reduction in the relative risk of total, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality by 8.3, 7.5 and 3.8 percentage points, respectively. We also estimate impact heterogeneity, with log-linearly larger reductions in NO2 and mortality risk at higher baseline-pollution levels.

These results imply that the EU zero-emission mobility policy is expected to improve air-quality and public health in urban areas with high traffic density, though benefits may vary across regions due to differences in meteorological conditions and urban/orographic characteristics, supporting a spatially differentiated policy implementation.

Air-pollution

EU zero-emission-mobility policy

Urban areas

NO2 abatement

Health effects

Relative risk of mortality

Intertemporal statistical matching

Impact heterogeneity

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.