The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, will today (Thursday 3rd December) join international leaders in Paris to discuss new ways of working together to tackle global climate change and deliver ambitious carbon reductions. London has led the way with a 14 per cent reduction in carbon emissions since 2008 despite an increase in population of around 1 million and robust economic growth.
Over two days (December 3- 4), the Mayor will meet with senior politicians, including the French President, François Hollande, and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, as he attends a series of events around COP21 (Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) and shares some of London’s most innovative and successful environmental policies. He will join more than 100 city leaders from across the globe at the C40 Summit, a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change.
On arrival in Paris, Boris Johnson and the British Ambassador will lay a remembrance rose at the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people lost their lives in last month’s terrorist attacks. He will meet with Mayor Hidalgo to discuss ways in which London can further support Paris in the aftermath of the attacks and will use his visit to champion both London and Paris as top international tourist destinations and encourage Londoners to continue to visit the French capital. The Mayor will visit department store BHV Marais to support British retail brands in the run-up to Christmas.
As Deputy Chair of the C40 Climate Leadership Group, the Mayor is set to attend a Steering Committee meeting (on Thursday 3 December) alongside Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio de Janeiro and the Mayor of Seoul where he will discuss plans to boost London’s status as the clean tech capital of the world with new green business and research centres, plus the delivery of the world’s first low emissions zone ULEZ, which will help dramatically improve London’s air quality and reduce carbon emissions.
On Friday, the Mayor will attend the C40 Summit, where he will share the success of his recent Clean Bus Summit. The Mayor has transformed the capital’s bus network into one of the cleanest and greenest in the world. The Mayor will highlight how working in partnership with cities to show manufacturers the size of the market in clean buses and the demand for hydrogen, electric, and biodiesel fuelled vehicles is leading to a reduction in capital costs.
The Mayor will share plans to expand the clean tech research and innovation at Imperial College to include a new leading research and innovation campus at Imperial White City. He is also backing an Old Oak Common and Park Royal Development Corporation feasibility study that will consider what support is needed for a centre of low carbon industries and employment at one of UK’s biggest regeneration sites at Old Oak Common. The Mayor would like the three sites to form a world leading innovation hub that nurture the best green business ideas and transforms and supports them into investable enterprises.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP said: “It’s vitally important that world cities unite and work together to mitigate climate change. London’s thriving green economy is worth over £30 billion and we are a leading centre of innovation; with the entrepreneurs, technical ability, academia and engineering to drive the transition to a low carbon economy. We’ve proven in the capital that unprecedented population increases are no barrier to reducing carbon emissions and I look forward to discussions with my fellow mayors that help deliver a positive environmental impact.”
The Mayor has already helped fund hundreds of green business in London including KiWi Power: a London-based smart grid company, who are helping people reduce electricity consumption with a smart-phone app that alerts householders to switch off domestic appliances during times of peak energy demand, and provide energy saving advice. Another successful mayoral backed start-up has been a biobean who turn the waste coffee grounds collected from London baristas into advanced biomass pellets, which are then used to power energy networks and heat thousands of homes.
Both Paris and London are using innovative ways to use their rivers to provide renewable energy and the Mayor wants to see 25 per cent of London’s energy from local sources by 2025. During his time in Paris, Mayor will visit a thermal power station owned by ENGIE which uses water from the river Seine to cool five million square meters of public buildings (including the National Assembly and the Guimet Museum, etc). The station lowers the CO2 emissions in each of the buildings by reducing the use of individual air-conditioners.
The Mayor is set to help deliver a similar new scheme in Greenwich uses using the Thames to provide renewable and affordable heat to local homes. They will be run through heat pumps located at Greenwich Power Station, to produce hot water to be piped through a heat network for local homes. This will improve air quality through lower boiler emissions and reduce utility bills for residents by around 10 per cent. The Mayor has helped launched a similar scheme in Islington, Bunhill which will use heat from the Tube to fuel hundreds of local homes with cheaper, greener heating for residents.
These are just some of the many comprehensive measures the Mayor has implemented to boost the environment and make London more pleasant to live in, including tightening Low Emission Zone standards, supporting over £100 million of decentralised energy projects, driving the biggest buildings’ energy efficiency programme in the capital’s history and planting over half a million new trees.