The Conservative Party’s candidate for the London Mayoralty Zac Goldsmith has said he wants London to be the “greenest city on Earth” and eyed a greater adoption of electric vehicles to solve its air pollution problem.
Addressing the Conservative Party Conference this afternoon a week after being formally announced as the party’s candidate to replace current incumbent Boris Johnson next year, Goldsmith said London needed to “enhance” its environment given the “sheer pace of change” occurring within the city.
“We need to guarantee that every child and every family has access to somewhere to play, to grow, to cherish. London is the greatest city on Earth, I want it to be the greenest,” he said.
In order to achieve that Goldsmith said London would have to “get to grips with one of the great menaces of urban life” in air pollution. London’s air quality has deteriorated rapidly in recent years and yesterday the University College of London announced that it had found eight of nine London areas surveyed breached EU limits for nitrogen dioxide in the air.
An increase in diesel-fuelled vehicles has been blamed for record pollution levels, and Goldsmith was quick to laud electric vehicles in today’s address.
“You can already drive from this hall to London’s City Hall for £5 in an all-electric British-made Nissan Leaf. We need to accelerate that transition,” he said.
Current mayor Boris Johnson has held a long-standing ambition to have more than 100,000 electric cars operating in London, but he was criticised during a Mayor’s Question Time session last month after it was revealed the capital was falling behind on its charging points target – with a large amount of those installed said to be faulty.
The session attracted a protest from London cab drivers who are opposed to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. It was temporarily suspended after a fracas erupted after Johnson referred to the cab drivers as “luddites”.
(Cover image credit: Policy Exchange)
