Sadiq Khan’s environment deputy has insisted that the election of “climate denier” Donald Trump as US President “isn’t going to affect” the mayor’s ambition to deliver net zero carbon emissions in London by 2030.
Mete Coban, deputy mayor for the environment and energy, told a City Hall meeting on Wednesday that cities like London can “lead the way” and will remain “very ambitious” in tackling climate change.
His remarks to the London Assembly came as new data showed that the UK capital is still a long way off achieving Mr Khan’s goal of net zero emissions within the next six years.
Statistics published by City Hall this week indicated that net carbon in London in 2022 was only 21 per cent lower than when Mr Khan took office in 2016 - though this was still a bigger reduction than the 14 per cent decrease seen across the UK in the same period.
At a meeting of the Assembly’s environment committee, the deputy mayor was asked by Labour member Bassam Mahfouz whether “recent global events” will impact the capital’s ability to meet its climate goals.
Mr Trump has said that concern over the environment is “one of greatest scams of all time” and he has pledged to increase the production of US fossil fuels, vowing to "drill, drill, drill" on day one.
Mr Coban said: “I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a depressing day with the results in the US. We’ve now got someone who’s in charge of the most powerful country in the world, who’s quite evidently a climate denier.
“But what I will say is that cities have always shown how we can lead the way. The mayor is the co-chair of the C40 network [of global cities working to address climate change], which has already done some astounding work when it comes to thinking about solutions that we need to really move forward on our net zero ambitions.
“So what happens in global events isn’t going to affect us - we’re very clear, the mayor’s always been very clear, about making sure that we’re being very ambitious for London… because London does have a huge role to play in making sure that we’re doing our bit to bring about the benefits that people will see from the green transition.”
According to the London Emissions and Greenhouse Gas Inventory, an official dataset compiled by City Hall, London’s net emissions stood at 28.89 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022, a slight rise compared with 2021’s figure of 28.74.
City Hall’s data experts said this due to a “pandemic rebound effect” caused by the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Once the city’s population growth is taken into account however, there was a slight fall in net carbon emitted per Londoner in 2022.
Mr Coban told the committee that the UK’s Labour Government was “as ambitious” as the mayor’s administration at City Hall in driving down emissions, and that he hoped to see funding for climate projects secured on a multi-year basis to accelerate London’s progress towards net zero.
He also pointed out that Transport for London had recently secured £485m in capital funding in the Chancellor’s Budget, which he hoped would help the capital’s transport network to increase its climate resilience.
The mayor’s office this week highlighted a new report showing that emissions from proposed new developments in London in 2023 were less than half of the CO2 levels required to meet national building regulations, with a saving of over 32,000 tonnes. They said that this was equivalent to 27,000 return flights from London to New York.
