Sadiq Khan has admitted that London is still not on track to meet his target of net zero carbon emissions by 2030.
The mayor stressed however that since the change of Government in July this year, he had become more “hopeful” of progress accelerating.
The goal was set by Mr Khan back in 2020 - and will require the capital to achieve net zero a full two decades ahead of the Government’s national target of 2050.
Recent City Hall statistics indicate however that net carbon in London in 2022 was only 21 per cent lower than when Mr Khan first 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.
The issue was raised with Mr Khan at a People’s Question Time event on Thursday night by a member of the audience, who asked him: “Is London hitting the targets on the way to becoming a net zero city that you’ve set?”
The mayor replied: “I was really proud [that] we’re the first global city to have a target to get to net zero by 2030. It’s a big ask, and I also declared a climate emergency.
“In this great city of London, we now regularly have flash flooding. It didn’t happen when I was growing up. We regularly have heatwaves; in the past two years, temperatures north of 41 degrees. In fact, the busiest week for the Fire Brigade in London, since the Blitz, was because of the heatwave a couple of years ago.
“So this is happening to us now - which is why we’ve got to address this issue. At the moment, before [the general election on] July 4, if you asked me the question, I’d say ‘No, we’re not on target to get to net zero by 2030.’
“We’re still not on target, but the first five months of the new Government gives me hope we can get there. Why? Because the Government is announcing policies to give funding to retrofit buildings - [with] insulation, double-glazing, triple-glazing.
“The Government’s also giving us funding to get more electric buses, zero-emission-carbon buses. They’re also funding [the] training up [of] young people to have the skills for the jobs being created, which is really important, so actually we can turn this crisis - the climate emergency - into an opportunity, [with] well-paid, future-proof jobs.
“So I’m hopeful we can get to net zero by 2030, but we need the support of the Government and, at the same time, the support of people like you doing the right thing, to support us getting to net zero.”
But Thomas Turrell, the Tory London Assembly member for Bexley and Bromley, criticised the mayor for overseeing several climate-related delays in recent months.
“The chair of the London Sustainable Development Commission answered at the [City Hall] environment committee recently that if things carry on as we are, we are on a two out of ten or three out of ten chance of hitting net zero in that [2030] target,” said Mr Turrell.
“And what’s the mayor done in this term so far? Well, he delayed reappointing that commission to the point that we had to challenge him on the delay… It took him two months to appoint a new deputy mayor for the environment after the election, so he left the position vacant for two months.
“In my constituency, where we’ve just had the all-electric 358 bus coming in… This bus was 18 months late and the implementation of this bus has been an absolute fiasco. So I think until the mayor gets a grip, we’re not going to hit that target.”
Mr Khan was separately challenged by another audience member on his policies to improve London’s air quality, accusing him of deploying “regressive taxes” which disproportionately hit those who can “least afford to pay” them. The question appeared to reference the £12.50 Ulez daily charge for vehicles which fail to comply with the zone’s emission standards.
The mayor denied that his climate and clean air policies were “regressive”, adding: “What we are seeing though, is the climate emergency being used as a proxy for a culture war and I resist our health and the planet being used as a proxy for the culture war.”
