Clean Air Manifesto 2016

This is Clean Air in London’s (CAL) manifesto for the Mayoral and London Assembly elections on 5 May 2016. We’re scoring the Mayoral candidates against these 10 pledges.

The Mayor’s only real power is transport policy. Mayoral candidates must address the tough issues of air pollution, fares, road traffic collisions and diesel emissions. Issues like housing do not affect everyone and they are ‘soft issues’ for the candidates i.e. easy to make promises with no political downside and little authority or accountability.

We’re focusing on five areas:

Leading a Clean Air Revolution
Air pollution alerts
Diesel bans including Emissions Based Road Charging (before 2020)
Active travel
Building emissions

Recent example:

CAL 325 CAL ranking of Mayoral candidates_Working draft 070416

The pledges

“As Mayor, I will make London the most liveable mega city in the world by delivering on these 10 Mayoral pledges for clean air:

Political leadership: I will publish an Air Quality Strategy within 18 months that will include a convincing plan to achieve full compliance with World Health Organisation guidelines for air quality throughout London by 2020. We will lead the world in clean air businesses and technologies as we did so successfully 60 years ago when we banned coal burning.
Building public understanding: I will tweet smog warnings from my account before every air pollution episode forecast by the London Air Quality Network http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/publicepisodes.asp?region=0. I will champion more and better monitoring and maintain and build our scientific expertise for clean air in London. I will build public understanding of air pollution with advice for people on protecting themselves and reducing pollution for themselves and others.
Airport expansion: I oppose a third runway at Heathrow and other airport expansion in the South East of England https://cleanair.london/legal/airport-expansion-at-heathrow-or-gatwick-would-breach-air-pollution-laws/.
New Clean Air Act: I will put in place a new Clean Air Act for London that will update the current act for modern fuels and technologies. Inter alia it will: ban biomass and waste burning; stop the use of standby diesel generators to supply the grid; ban incinerators; ensure any Combined Heat and Power units use ultra-low NOx treatment; require onshore power supply for shipping facilities; and enforce tighter emission standards for non-road mobile machinery.
Active travel: I will invest heavily in active travel to complement my plans for Emissions-Based Road Charging. I will also introduce a default 20mph speed limit in all residential streets across London to reduce accidents and NOx emissions (see City of London report below).
Emissions-Based Road Charging: I will ban diesel from the most polluted places as we banned coal burning so successfully 60 years ago. I will do this through Emissions-Based Road Charging (EBRC) including payments to walkers and cyclists https://cleanair.london/sources/emissions-based-road-charging-by-2018-and-paid-to-walk-or-cycle-by-2020/.
Buses, taxis and PHVs: I will deliver the ‘Eight point transformation package for taxis and PHVs’ as modified for EBRC e.g. PHVs must pay the congestion charge https://cleanair.london/sources/eight-point-transformation-package-for-the-taxi-and-phv-industry/. I will retrofit all buses to Euro 6 standard by 2018 and insist on zero tailpipe emissions for all new bus contracts from 1 January 2020.
Building emissions: I will put in place a programme to replace all G-rated gas boilers by 2025 with the latest units. I will insist all developments use low energy air filters to comply fully with British and European standard EN 13779 to achieve good indoor air quality.
Planning: I will update the London Plan and use my powers to ensure that local authorities and I comply fully with air pollution laws in all planning decisions.
Eliminate inequalities: I will identify, measure, monitor and eliminate inequalities relating to air pollution by 2025.