London Mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan targets 100% clean energy

Labour's Mayoral candidate for London Sadiq Khan has pledged to run London on 100% green energy by 2050, after throwing his support behind an ambitious new plan set out by the Institute for Public Policy Research.


Khan was speaking at launch of the 100% London campaign, hosted by the Royal Institute of British Architects, which is running alongside the new plan from the IPPR.

The Institute is calling on all mayoral candidates to follow and implement nine new strategies that would see London operate entirely on clean energy within the next 35 years.

As the Guardian reported, Khan said: “Yes to 100% London. If it’s good enough for Sydney and Copenhagen and New York, why not London? We’ve fallen behind in our 2025 target … I want to be the greenest mayor London’s ever had.”

Khan is basing his optimism on an IPPR report – Zero-carbon London: A plan for the next Mayoral term. The report notes that the new Mayor has a target to reduce carbon emissions in the city by 60% by 2025 and that currently London is behind schedule.

The report then lays out nine essential targets for the new mayor to meet along with 12 desirable targets that would ensure London reaches a 100% target by 2050. The targets cover transport, energy, the built environment and governance by introducing green levies, green space and cycle bridges among other initiatives.

Retrofitting houses for energy efficiency, investing in the transit system but encourage cycling, introducing a city-wide energy network which implements rooftop solar, cutting emissions from car use, scale up workplace retrofitting and reduce the cost of delivering to and from the workplace and maximising the city’s resource efficiency are considered the essential steps that should be followed in the report.

Khan is already considering implementing car-free days and heating systems powered by the Underground, retrofitting London’s homes and installing solar panels as ways to help London reach its climate and energy targets.

Complex capital

The move to clean energy comes at a time where London is considered one of the most water-stressed cities in the world according to new research, which ranks London 15th in determining how global urbanisation is affecting water supplies.

However, research form the University of Toronto found London is the only ‘megacity‘ in the world where electricity use per capita is going down while GDP is going up, citing effective taxes on waste disposal and a comprehensive public transport system as catalysts for the trends.

In previous months, Khan, along with other electoral candidate David Lammy, has committed to move the capital’s finances out of fossil fuels if they are elected as London mayor next May.

Zero-Carbon London Report

Matt Mace

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