Since declaring a climate emergency in 2018, Sadiq Khan has made clear his ambitions for London to lead the way in the UK’s net-zero efforts. The London mayor has even pledged to transition the capital to zero carbon by 2030, two decades before the national target.
But while achieving net zero by 2030 was previously a hallmark of a progressive, climate-conscious City Hall, the incumbent mayor now finds himself in the middle of an electoral mire over his ambitious climate plan. With pressure mounting from critics over the ULEZ expansion and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s easing of national net-zero policies, addressing climate risk is no longer a matter of consensus.
What is London’s net-zero plan?
Khan’s current climate ambitions began with the publication of two documents, the London Environment Strategy and Zero Carbon London: A 1.5°C Compatible Plan in 2018, which set out City Hall’s original commitment to reach net zero by 2050. However, bringing that date forward by 20 years to 2030 brought with it a host of requirements beyond those of the rest of the country.
This new net–zero pathway includes ambitions to insulate more than two million homes, install 2.2 million heat pumps and reduce car travel by 27%. That is alongside nationwide policies and other high-profile measures like a complete conversion to zero-carbon Tube travel by 2030 and the ULEZ expansion.
Rishi Sunak’s net zero rollback
For the plan to work, it requires cooperation with the UK government on policy, which has been jeopardised by Sunak’s pivot in the government’s approach to net zero. The new roadmap pushes back a ban on sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles to 2035 and eases requirements on home energy efficiency upgrades such as heat pumps.
This misalignment between Whitehall and City Hall could risk Khan’s ability to deliver on his vision.
A spokesperson for the mayor of London told City Monitor: “Making London a net-zero city by 2030 is a huge challenge and we need the government to do more, not less, to help us meet this ambition.
“The government’s decision to row back on environment measures flies in the face of common sense and not only waters down vital commitments but [also] passes up the opportunity to create green jobs, wealth and lower energy bills. It also fails to provide certainty for businesses wanting to invest in the green economy.”
By the 2024 London mayoral election, Khan may need to prove that his decarbonisation roadmap is going according to plan to justify its measures in opposition to the turning government tide. But that begs the question: is it? What are the targets and are they on track?
Examining London’s climate measures
Heat pumps
Heat pumps, which use heat transference rather than generation to warm homes more efficiently, are a cornerstone of the national net-zero policy. It is less than auspicious, then, that London is lagging behind the rest of the country on the uptake of subsidised boiler upgrades despite its significantly accelerated net-zero plan.
Using the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), homeowners can apply for a grant of up to £5,000 (increasing to £7,500) to help pay for the costs of replacing a traditional boiler with a modern heat pump. On this metric, ONS data shows that London has the second lowest number of upgrades out of any region in England and Wales, only beaten by the North East.
Out of 13,772 total redemptions nationwide between May 2022 and July 2023, London tallied just 578. That is an average of 39 per month or 1.3 per day. The South West, which redeemed 2,684 vouchers, saw nearly five times as many in the same period.
London is particularly hampered in its ability to encourage boiler upgrades due to its disproportionate number of renters. Tenants are unable to claim BUS vouchers despite being responsible for paying the bills in most cases, creating a disincentive for landlords to invest in upgrading to a heat pump.
Boiler upgrades for new homes are only part of the calculation, however. According to data provided by the Mayor’s Office, between 2020 and 2021, heat pumps were secured for installation to serve more than 36,400 homes in upcoming new developments. But even accounting for these, there is still a significant shortfall behind the goal of 750 installations per day between 2025 and 2030.
Insulation
Along with heat pumps, London’s 2030 plan relies on household energy efficiency improvements through wall and roof insulation. More than two million homes will need to be properly insulated to reach the pathway’s target.
Uptake partly hinges on the public making use of the ECO+ scheme, which offers government grants to help energy companies improve household insulation. Unlike heat pumps, however, ECO+ incentives are only available under more specific circumstances – for example, if a person is in receipt of benefits. But comparing London with the UK as a whole, a very similar picture emerges.
London has the lowest ECO+ insulation installation rate in the country at 64.8 per 1,000 households, followed by the South East at 72.1. This is in stark contrast to the North West at 212.2 and the national average of 134.8.
Exacerbating the issue is the prime minister easing Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, which means landlords are no longer responsible for ensuring EPC ratings of C or higher by 2030. According to City Hall, this will leave tenants in 320,000 homes at risk of higher costs and worse conditions.
These shortfalls could be a serious hindrance to the 2030 plan, but the capital has some relief in the form of the London-specific Warmer Homes programme. This provides insulation grants of between £5,000 and £25,000 for households in receipt of benefits or on low incomes and had done so for 2,500 homes as of summer 2022.
The scheme has now closed for 2023 and it is unclear whether it is slated to continue into 2024, but doing so would likely bolster the mayor’s efforts to reach his target.
ULEZ
While predominantly a pollution-reduction measure, the Ultra-low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) has become more closely associated with net zero for the public, largely due to criticism.
Though it is too soon to measure the impact of the controversial outer London expansion, existing ULEZ data shows that the introduction of past zones met their goals.
According to a 2022 City Hall study of the previous ULEZ expansion, 94% of vehicles in the zone met emissions standards after six months compared with 39% two years before the initial introduction of the zone. As a result, NOx concentration in London’s air is estimated at 20% lower than pre-ULEZ, rising to 44% in central London.
A separate City Hall report showed that there had been a 3% reduction in CO2 emissions over four years in the capital due to ULEZ, increasing to 6% in central London. City Hall described this as a “vital step closer to achieving the mayor’s aim of reaching net zero by 2030”.
Net-zero Underground and buses
With TfL as one of the largest consumers of electricity in the UK, Khan has made it a priority to reduce the carbon footprint of the Tube to zero by 2030.
Having first announced plans to decarbonise the Tube within the decade, we are starting to see progress after City Hall announced a power purchase agreement tender in 2022, which “aims to purchase approximately 10% of TfL’s required electricity from renewable energy sources and new build assets”.
Khan reaffirmed the ambition in September 2023, saying he expected a contract to be signed in early 2024.
“This marks the first in a series of tranches where TfL will go out to procure new build renewables and is its first major step towards ensuring it meets our goal of being net zero by 2030,” he said in response to a question Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best.
But with 40% of the UK’s electricity at large produced by renewable sources, 10% is behind the curve.
More encouragingly, TfL rolled out its 1,000th zero-emission bus in August 2023, marking one in nine of the fleet. This gives London the largest carbon-free bus network in western Europe and is on track for complete decarbonisation by as early as 2030 with government funding, or 2034 without.
Is London on track for net-zero 2030?
There is no doubt that the new direction from the government on net zero will put London at loggerheads with the country, at least until the next general election.
Many of the core targets for the accelerated green plan – such as those for boiler upgrades and insulation – rely on UK-wide commitments to decarbonise that are being whittled away. Given that London is already slow on the uptake of national schemes, this is less than encouraging.
However, where the mayor does have the agency to affect change, progress is being made. ULEZ (not including outer London) has proven its effectiveness and efforts to decarbonise public transport are making headway. Likewise, schemes designed to prepare for the net-zero transition, such as the £32m investment in London’s green skills academies, give the capital a firm footing to ramp up rollouts of green developments as 2030 approaches.
But given the enormity of the task and the increasing hurdles posed by electoral forces, success is not in plain sight.
As the mayor’s spokesperson told City Monitor: “If the government is unwilling to act they should devolve more powers and resources to mayors and other city leaders who are willing to step up.”
[Read more: Which cities are in the race to net zero?]
