Green London Assembly Member Jenny Jones calls for the Mayor of London to seriously address London’s lack of ability to cope with rising temperatures.
With London’s temperatures due to soar over the next two days, peaking at 31C during the day and 19C at night on friday, London Assembly Member Jenny Jones is concerned that London’s streets, homes, workplaces, emergency services, utility companies and public transport are not being adapted anywhere near fast enough to cope with more frequent ‘overheating days‘ and ‘heatwaves’.
The London Assembly Environment Committee heard evidence that the average 18 ‘overheating days’ a year in London are expected to double by 2020 under projected changes in climate to about 33 days, with the number of fatalities from higher summer temperatures increasingly significantly.
London Assembly Member Jenny Jones AM said “As London becomes intolerably hot and muggy over the next few days, this should serve as a warning that extreme weather events are becoming the norm.”
“Instead of seriously ramping up our ability to cope with rising temperatures, the Mayor is still playing with the idea that we are entering a mini ice age and dodging the fact that carbon emissions are the dominant cause of global warming. Whilst this position may appease his powerful climate sceptic mates, and avoids him taking hard and costly decisions, we will all pay dearly for this failure in the future”
As a start, Jenny is calling for:
1. An urgent Mayoral climate change conference with genuine mainstream climate experts to look at how London will cope with extreme weather events. The Mayor is known to seek advice from amateur weathermen and a known climate sceptic.
2. Trees and urban greening to cut urban heat island effect (HIE) – the Mayor should focus on greening and tree canopy cover in central London, along roads and other built up locations where HIE is most pronounced. It is not clear how the Mayor will achieve his aim of increasing tree canopy cover by 5% by 2025, the equivalent of 2 million extra trees. The Mayor rejected Jenny’s call to consider the ‘Million Trees New York City’ model which delivers 100,000 trees each year, compared to his 10,000 over four years.
3. Develop a costed and clear action plan Ensure that the Mayor’s forthcoming Infrastructure investment plan puts climate adaptation and mitigation at its core, with a fully costed and comprehensive plan to increase the resilience of London’s infrastructure, it’s buildings and businesses. Along the lines of New York ‘A Stronger, More Resilience New York’ plan which commits $10 billion in funding to support implementation.