At the COP26 climate change summit last November, Sadiq Khan was dubbed the climate “king” as he took over as chair of the C40 group of cities that have committed to tackling toxic air.
Indeed, the Mayor of London has made the environment one of his top priorities, having just last week announced a plan to expand the Ultra-Low Emission Zone to cover the whole of Greater London in a bid to take on the “triple challenges” of tackling air pollution, climate change and congested roads.
But while Mr Khan has claimed the title of climate “king”, it has been the tireless efforts of some of London’s women that have arguably led him to taking the bold action needed to make a difference, and it is largely women who are pushing him to go even further.
As the world marks International Women’s Day on Tuesday, the Standard takes a look at some of the influential women in London who are making a difference in the fight against climate change.
Rosamund Adoo Kissi-Debrah – Ella Roberta Family Foundation
In 2013, Rosamund Adoo Kissi-Debrah’s nine-year-old daughter Ella died following a series of severe asthma attacks. Following an inquest in 2020, Ella became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death.
Rosamund set up the Ella Roberta Family Foundation in memory of her daughter, campaigning to raise awareness about the links between air pollution and asthma while lobbying for changes in policy.
Her campaigning has had a big influence on policy in London and, just weeks ago, Ms Kissi-Debrah was part of a summit about improving public health messaging about pollution alongside Sadiq Khan, health experts and Government leaders, including Professor Chris Whitty and Defra Minister Jo Churchill.
On Tuesday, she took part in a panel discussion featuring the World Health Organisation’s director of public health Dr Maria Neira about the role that women are playing in the climate movement.
Ms Kissi-Debrah said that it is important for people to see that “we can do something, not just gather together to moan and groan”.
“There was all that [criticism] with COP26 when it first started that it was a bit of an old boy’s club, so hopefully people can see there are women in prominent roles doing things,” she said.
Following on from COP26 last year, Ms Kissi-Debrah said she plans to follow up with COP26 president Alok Sharma later this year to ensure that progress is being made on key pledges.
She said: “I think it’s really important to hold people to account. We met Alok Sharma at COP26, and we need to start making moves now to go back and do a follow-up with him to see some of the promises – there’s always lots of positive promises, as you can imagine – but it’s to go back and find out what’s happened.”
But with everything that is going on the world and a rapidly moving news agenda, Ms Kissi-Debrah said that she must keep working to ensure that the climate crisis “doesn’t fall off the agenda”.
Jemima Hartshorn – Mums for Lungs
Founded in 2017, Mums for Lungs is the very definition of a grassroots organisation.
Jemima Hartshorn, the organisation’s founder, recalled how it all began when a group of parents from Brixton got chatting about how fed up they were of pollution and congestion on the school run.
“About five years ago, I was on maternity leave for the first time and living on a very polluted road in Brixton and I was pushing around my son in the pram, and it just felt polluted. There were so many cars. I started talking to other parents about it and we wanted to do something about it. There we were, suddenly we started a group called Mums for Lungs,” she said.
The problem, according to Ms Hartshorn, was that nobody was taking the issue seriously enough, “neither Lambeth [Council], nor the Mayor [of London], nor the national Government”.
Mums for Lungs has campaigned at local and national levelling, from petitioning borough councils about engine idling to writing to Government about the upcoming Environment Bill.
But it is still the grassroots campaigning that is the most exciting aspect, according to Ms Hartshorn.
“What has been really exciting is that a lot of the work we do is all about mobilising and supporting other campaigners or campaign groups. That sort of stuff I feel really quite proud about.
“We have quite a lot of resources on School Streets, for example. It’s peer-to-peer but also, we provide support, we speak to every parent who wants to get in touch and talk about air pollution and get advice on campaigning locally for their School Street.”
School Streets have been one of the key focuses for Mums for Lungs and Ms Hartshorn said she would like to see one “at every school possible” in London.
The schemes allow temporary restrictions to be put in place on traffic outside schools at pick-up and drop-off times in order to reduce pollution and road danger.
Ms Hartshorn said: “We need a real scheme where children of all ages can get to school safely, happily without getting polluted too badly.”
Beyond supporting communities in implementing School Streets, Mums for Lungs is also campaigning for a ban on wood burners where they are not necessary due to the health risks they pose, while the group is also calling on the Mayor of London to make the capital a diesel-free city.
London Assembly Members
The London Assembly is an often-overlooked institution that, although lacks much in the way of formal powers, has an important role in holding the Mayor of London to account.
Unlike many public bodies, the Assembly has the rare accolade of being made up of a majority of women. Thirteen of the 25 members who were elected or re-elected last May are women.
Over the years, the women on the London Assembly have played a crucial role in ensuring that climate change remains a key priority for the mayor and that he delivers on his promises.
Happy #InternationalWomensDay to all Londoners.
— London Assembly (@LondonAssembly) March 8, 2022
We're proud to have a majority of women on the @LondonAssembly, with 13 out of 25 Members. However, there is much more still to be done to #BreakTheBias.
Explore some of the #IWDmissions here👇https://t.co/Sl1jmI2b7F#IWD2022 pic.twitter.com/Xwsj6fj9KP
In 2018, Sadiq Khan declared a climate emergency as he announced a plan to make London a net-zero carbon emissions city by 2030.
But that only came following an intervention from the London Assembly. Specifically, from Caroline Russell, an Assembly Member representing the Green Party.
The mayor’s original climate plans included a target of net-zero by 2050. But the London Assembly voted in favour of a motion proposed by Ms Russell that called on the mayor to recognise the scale of the climate emergency and bring forward net-zero targets in London.
Despite declaring a climate emergency in 2018, Ms Russell said it took a lot of “badgering” to get an updated plan outlining how the 2030 target was going to be achieved.
She said: “The whole point of declaring a climate emergency is about acknowledging the urgency of taking action on climate and actually changing your plans and making it more urgent and working to much tighter deadlines.”
Ms Russell’s Green Party colleague Sian Berry has also had a significant role to play in holding the mayor to account on the issue of climate.
Sadiq Khan’s recent announcement that he is planning on expanding the Ultra-Low Emission Zone to cover the whole of Greater London was welcomed by the Greens on the Assembly, though they pointed out that a London-wide ULEZ was something Sian Berry had proposed in her 2016 manifesto during her run as a London mayoral candidate.
The Liberal Democrats on the Assembly – Caroline Pidgeon and Hina Bokhari – have also been instrumental in holding the mayor to account on climate.
While Caroline Pidgeon has long been a vocal critic of the mayor’s Silvertown Tunnel project which many say will increase traffic and pollution in an already polluted part of London, Hina Bokhari has recently been campaigning for greater public health messaging about the health risks of wood burning stoves.
