Consultant Element Energy focuses on technology and engineering solutions, and many researchers are skeptical — but even they admit that “technology alone won’t achieve net zero ahead of time.”
When the mayor asked to show how London’s transport could be decarbonised faster than previously planned, the advisers proposed a massive “behavioural change”: in the “accelerated green” scenario, traffic would be reduced by 27% in vehicle-kilometres driven per year % – or, in a more ambitious “no limit” scenario, a 40% reduction.
According to Element Energy, even a drastic cut in traffic will not be enough to meet London’s climate goals. A huge technological shift is also required: in the “accelerating green” scenario, 46% of London’s cars will be electric and 10% hybrid, within eight years.
inaccuracy
Other transportation researchers are skeptical Regarding the decarbonization effects of electric vehicles, it is recommended that more emphasis be placed on reducing traffic.
Where is London headed? Cities can make a huge collective effort to reduce road traffic. Or it could put resources into the Silvertown Tunnel, a road expansion project. Pretending that it can do both is double consideration.
in a Reply With Element Energy’s proposal, the mayor proposes to introduce a London-wide road user charge “in the mid-to-late 2020s”, raising another question mark about plans to use tolls to fund tunnel projects. Will there be an increase in tunnel tolls on top of the city’s road tolls? It strains credibility.
Last April, 72 climate scientists, transportation researchers and other experts warn ‘Stupid’ tunnel project will ‘undermine UK efforts to tackle climate change’. City Hall responded by strengthening its double-mindedness.
The mayor’s office never responded to the climate researchers’ request. Instead, when members of Congress and community activists wrote their own letters of protest, former Deputy Transportation Mayor Heidi Alexander responded with what I believe to be misleading and inaccurate information.
Scenes
In a format letter sent to those questioning the tunnel project, Alexander – resigned late last year and now hope To be Labour’s parliamentary candidate in South Swindon – he said:
* London’s climate target – then less ambitious than the new target set this year – is the “zero carbon target”. In fact, they set London to emit 18 MtCO2e per year into the atmosphere by 2030 and 5 MtCO2e per year by 2050. These numbers are not zero!
* Targets are based on “carbon emissions modelling”, “taking into account planned developments such as the Silvertown Tunnel”.
They are not.they are supported Evaluate From engineering firm Jacobs, which included public transport projects such as Crossrail 2 and the Docklands Light Rail and Bakerloo Line extensions – all subsequently scrapped – as well as tunnels.
The only model for tunnel greenhouse gas impacts, post TfL said in 2016 that (i) the tunnels would add 23,000 tCO2e/yr, and (ii) by the mid-2030s, London’s road network would generate more than 5 tCO2e/yr of GHG emissions, a level of More than twice as much as climate goals allow.
* London’s carbon emissions reduction trajectory in relation to its climate targets has been “independently assessed” by the global group of mayors C40 Cities.
In fact, C40 hired multinational engineering firm Arup to compare London’s carbon trajectory (with Arup as a consultant) to C40’s own deadline 2020 trajectory, which was in turn drafted by a team led by Arup employees.
In fact, there is always a wide gap between the scenarios in which the Silvertown tunnel is built and the scenarios in which London achieves its climate goals. By adopting new goals in January, the mayor widened that gap.
Tolls
Town Hall’s double-mindedness applies to transport policy as well. When TfL managers first simulated the impact of the Silvertown tunnel on traffic volumes, they told the computer to assume in advance that there would be no additional trips across the Thames.
This violates the key in principlevalidated by decades of traffic research and coded in reports to the UK government in 1994, 1998 and 2018, more roads generate more traffic.
TfL managers later admitted that the Silvertown tunnel could increase traffic by 15-30% flyer distributed to local residents.However, they claim that the proposed TOLL The tunnel – and the Blackwall Tunnel a few metres to the west – will solve this problem.
Previous experience, such as at Dartford Crossing and the M6 toll road, suggests that tolling does not have this effect: traffic may rise, though.
Legal advice for Greenwich and the Stop Silvertown Tunnel Coalition confirms that a future mayor could scrap the toll no matter what.
Invitation card
That is tweet Newham Mayor Fiaz shared this, while Sadiq Khan strongly disagreed.
The tweet also pointed out that TfL was wrong in referring to the Silvertown Tunnel as London’s “first new river crossing in over 50 years”. There are Millennium Bridge, Jubilee Line, Docklands Light Rail, Golden Jubilee Bridge and Crossrail.
City Hall’s double-thinking of climate and transport is inextricably linked to its double-thinking of local democracy.
The mayor’s staff has been obstructing our campaign and declining all our repeated invitations to discuss the tunnel publicly.
delegation
But even they were overtaken by the former leaders of Greenwich Council, who, bizarrely, claimed there was “no legal avenue” to oppose the tunnels for two years.
Q: Could you please send a letter or email to Sadiq Khan to stop and review this devastating project? Answer: “There is no legal way”. seriously. In a country with a reasonable level of free speech, in the 2020s.
When lawmakers opposed to tunnels brought the issue to the borough overview and review committee’s agenda in February, legal officials Suggest The agency wrongly believed that a development consent order issued in 2018 to approve the project barred it from taking action.
The legal principle that parliament can speak on any issue affecting local residents is ignored.
The parliamentary leadership’s efforts to suppress our protests went into overdrive. Former local mayor Dennis Hyland, be rejected We have repeatedly asked a representative to speak to the council and refused to let the public raise questions about the tunnel project on “legal” grounds.
strength
On February 24, we lobbied for a council meeting; Hyland, former parliamentary leader Danny Thorpe and others stubbornly held on to the double idea of ”legal”.
I remember it very well because that day, Russia invaded Ukraine. Dozens of local government officials in the country risk arrest by signing a call to stop the Kremlin — while their comfortable Greenwich counterparts use double thinking to explain why they cannot act.
Ultimately, voters in Greenwich were forced to make changes.The ruling Labour Party, which faces the Greens’ seat in May’s parliamentary election, suddenly reverse Its stance found there was a “legal avenue” and called for a moratorium and review of the tunnel project. But the damage to local democracy remains.
Local is global. If the Silvertown Tunnel project goes ahead, it will not only exacerbate the pollution problems in Greenwich and Newham, which will disproportionately affect London’s people of colour and low-income households; it will also prevent London from meeting its climate goals and contributing to climate change make an effective contribution.
This is also important outside of London. Sadiq Khan wields more executive power than any other Labour politician; his advocacy of climate doublethink shows us what a future Labour government will do.
hypnotize
This double thinking will not fool the millions of victims of climate change-related heatwaves and floods in the global south. But it makes all our efforts to deal with these problems more difficult. It needs to be challenged, exposed and defeated.
The term “doublethink” was coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984, written in 1949, set in a dystopian world dominated by the “party”.
“Winston [the novel’s main protagonist] His arms fell to his sides, slowly filling his lungs with air. His mind slipped into the labyrinthine world of doublethink,” Orwell wrote.
“Knowing and not knowing, being aware of complete truth when telling a well-crafted lie, holding two opposing viewpoints at the same time, knowing they are contradictory and believing them, using logic against logic, denying morality in advocating democracy At the same time, believing that democracy is impossible, the party is the guardian of democracy, forget anything that needs to be forgotten, then come back to memory when needed, then forget it again in time, and most importantly, apply the same process In the process itself – this is the ultimate subtlety: consciously inducing the unconscious and then again becoming unconscious of the hypnotic act you just performed. Even understanding the word – double thinking – involves the use of double thinking .”
right of reply
A spokesman for the Mayor of London told ecologist: “The Silvertown Tunnel will change the way people travel in parts of London where there are currently few options to cross the Thames.
“In addition to providing a new, zero-emission, cross-river bus service to areas in need, the tunnel will significantly reduce the chronic vehicle congestion and air pollution problems currently associated with inadequate Victorian black-wall tunnels.
“Both the Blackwall Tunnel and the new Silvertown Tunnel will have user charges and, combined with the Mayor’s overall policy of reducing car use in Greater London to support positive and public transport options, will help reduce congestion without increasing traffic.” river traffic.”
this author
Dr. Simon Pirani is an energy researcher and historian.His most recent book is burn up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto 2018).he is blogging Human and Nature And tweet as @SimonPirani1.
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