London and the climate emergency

CPRE London is leading a coalition to promote ‘A More Natural Capital’ and as part of that we are campaigning for the Mayor of London to:

• Form a Climate Emergency Alliance to help develop and adopt an ambitious, detailed, timetabled and costed plan to deliver net zero by 2030 or sooner, based on a green jobs and business strategy to ensure post pandemic economic activity delivers on climate targets.
• Commit to a zero-carbon transport sector by 2030 through a presumption against new roads as solution to travel challenges, including electrification of buses and taxis, opposing expansion of Heathrow and London City airports, creating zero-carbon delivery zones, and abandoning the proposed Silvertown Tunnel.
• Develop an action plan to deliver 1GW of solar power in the London area by 2030 through planning policy, support for community projects, loan finance, and convening commercial players.
• Incorporate ‘de-paving’ into all major development by the GLA group, and promote sustainable drainage and urban cooling measures, including rain gardens, for all new development as part of a vision for adapting to inevitable climate change.
• Increase tree canopy cover sensitively and sustainably by at least 20% by 2050, including through large scale woodland creation in the Green Belt and 100 new street tree schemes where they are needed most for shading.
• Lobby Government to ensure all new homes are built to zero carbon standards by 2023 and fund an ambitious programme to retrofit and sensitively adapt existing housing stock.

More

• We also campaigned in the run-up to the May 2022 local elections for more action from London’s 33 boroughs A more natural capital – an agenda for the local elections May 2022
• A more natural capital – the back story
• London’s Green Belt is our ‘Climate Safety Belt‘? The Mayor of London agrees
• We have previously written about airport expansion in London: ditch airport expansion, flight blight, phased closure