Boris’s climate and transport strategy fails miserably


by Darren Johnson AM    
8:50 am - February 11th 2010

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The Mayor of London’s climate change mitigation strategy (launched Monday) rightly recognises that to get to his target of a 60% reduction in carbon emissions in London by 2025, government policy and money will have to play a major part.

But he’s scaled back reductions made through his own programmes to the extent that government policy plus mayoral policy still leave a 5m tonne CO2 gap in what needs to be done.

In particular, the Mayor’s energy efficiency programmes rely on a major injection of government funding beyond 2012.

For example:

  • He is relying on attracting £200m of public money to take forward his homes energy efficiency programme.
  • He is also reliant on national policy to introduce new measures to help householders and businesses finance energy efficiency improvements.

  • Having initially funded 10 pilot low carbon zones, the Mayor does not have plans to deliver or fund the project beyond 2012, yet has a target for a further 23 zones (one in every Borough) by 2015.
  • He’s cutting punitive policies designed to push people out of their cars and instead relying on incentivising the take up of new low-carbon vehicles. This is despite indications this will be much slower than previously hoped.
  • He has no target for traffic reduction and has not quantified the emissions reduction he expects to come from a shift to public transport, cycling and walking.
  • He has cancelled the western extension of the congestion charge, stopped plans for road pricing across the city, and cut back on the expansion of the bus fleet.
  • His new initiatives in transport include a target of 100,000 electric vehicles in the capital by 2020 and smoothing traffic flow by changing the patterns of traffic lights, to cut down on emissions from idling vehicles.

The current Mayor has not stepped up to the challenge of climate change. He is in fact taking less responsibility for emissions cuts than his predecessor.

The best way he could go forward is to provide a detailed plan for reducing emissions in the capital and lobbying the government as to why they should finance it.

Yet, many areas don’t include specific policies, such as investment in skills and job creation to create the workforce needed to take forward climate change work. Others have few details on how the policies will be implemented beyond 2012.

This strategy falls short of being a detailed plan for London.

The Mayor’s strategy is available here.

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About the author
This is a guest post. Darren Johnson is chair of the London Assembly and deputy chair of the Business Management and Administration Committee. He represents the Green Party.
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Local Government ,London Mayor


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Reader comments


1. cjcjc

He’s cutting “punitive” policies, eh?

How very dare he.
That’ll certainly make him unpopular.

Keep it up.

2. Yurrzem!

No, he’s only cutting punitive policies that effect the wealthy. He’s leaving the ones that hurt the less well off.

3. jungle

Yurrzem!: “No, he’s only cutting punitive policies that effect the wealthy. He’s leaving the ones that hurt the less well off.”

The most obvious example being his targeting of the recent huge TfL fare rises on pay-as-you-go bus fares (typically used by poorer people) while pretty much holding the prices of most of the monthly tube passes (typically used by relatively well-paid commuters).

4. Sunny H

Not only that – he’s cutting police number, in direct contradiction of his policy, and increased PR people – also in direct contradiction of what he said he’d do

http://torytroll.blogspot.com/2010/02/boris-and-kit-get-touchy-feely-about.html

but don’t worry cjcjc – nothing to see here, move along, move along!


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. David NP Ludlam

    Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu (via @libcon)

  2. Political Animal

    RT @libcon Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu

  3. sunny hundal

    RT @libcon: Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu

  4. Darren Johnson

    Mayor's plan lacks investment in skills and job creation needed to take forward climate change work http://bit.ly/brznLX #environment

  5. Adam Bienkov

    RT @GreenGreenwich Green assembly member @DarrenJohnsonAM on why Mayor Johnson is failing London's environment http://bit.ly/brznLX

  6. Liberal Conspiracy

    Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu

  7. Boris Watch

    RT @libcon Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu < By @DarrenJohnsonAM

  8. Southwark Greens

    RT @libcon: Boris's climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu

  9. uberVU - social comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by libcon: Boris’s climate and transport strategy fails miserably http://bit.ly/aQHDKu…

  10. Greenwich Greens

    Our Green assembly member @DarrenJohnsonAM on why Mayor Johnson is failing London's environment http://bit.ly/brznLX

  11. Greenwich Greens

    Green assembly member @DarrenJohnsonAM on why Mayor Johnson is failing London's environment http://bit.ly/brznLX





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