London’s environment strategy is making the city healthier – Inside track

This post is by Shirley Rodrigues, London’s deputy mayor for environment and energy.

Nearly eight years ago, as the mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan made a promise to be the greenest mayor London has ever had. He was responding to a manifesto for a greener London, produced by Green Alliance and eight other organisations, calling for urgent and bolder action on the environment by whoever won the mayoral election in 2016.

Once elected, the mayor promised to give Londoners the best air quality of any major city by 2050, to make London the world’s first National Park City and to create a zero carbon city by 2050. He promised to make the city resilient to climate change, tackle noise pollution and move towards a zero waste city, empowered by a circular economy.

I was invited to lead on these initiatives and, in 2018, the London Environment Strategy was published showing how they would be delivered. So, how has that gone?

This month, the fourth progress update on what’s been achieved has been published. I’m pleased to say it shows that, across the board, the city has seen changes. London now has the world’s largest clean air zone of its kind, with 95 per cent of vehicles driving into the city being ultra low emission zone compliant, up from 37 per cent eight years ago. Consequently, our children and all of us are breathing safer air.

The capital became the world’s first National Park City in 2019, with half the city now being made up of green and blue spaces. This has been aided by the half a million trees, planted through the support of mayoral initiatives. A rewilding programme has brought back beavers in Ealing, bees in Bexley and bats in Barnes.

Transport is cleaner, with well over a thousand zero emissions buses on the city’s streets, alongside a third of the UK’s electric charging points. London’s cycle network is four times larger than in 2016 and we have channelled the spirit of Victorian clean water pioneers by installing 110 new drinking water fountains, cutting costs for users and avoiding the equivalent of more than 5.6 million half litre single use plastic bottles.

The challenge is greater than first thoughtProgress has moved further and faster than we thought was possible. We had to move faster because it has become apparent that the challenge is greater than we first thought. The recent debilitating impact of wildfires and flooding on the city has led us to move the deadline for London becoming a net zero carbon city forward from 2050 to 2030. With these concerns in mind, the mayor’s office commissioned an independent review into London’s climate resilience. Its interim findings are now informing decisions about further changes needed to ensure London is protected. It’s clear that, for all the progress we’ve made, there’s still much more to do.

While we are proud of what’s been achieved, we know we need to accelerate action on the climate and nature emergencies. We’ve had setbacks, not least a global pandemic and national political uncertainty. There are also areas where we would like to do more, but where we do not have sufficient powers to do so; for instance, retrofitting more homes for energy efficiency or cleaning up London’s rivers.

We couldn’t have done this in isolation. Partnerships have been vital. We are grateful to all those ambitious Londoners, boroughs, businesses and charities who have been working closely with us to make London a greener and healthier place.

This article is adopted from the foreword to the London Environment Strategy’s Fourth Progress Report.