All new London buses to be zero-emission Mayor says
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has announced that new Transport for London (TfL) buses will be carbon neutral, as the UK prepares to host COP26.
TfL said in a statement that by the end of next year, ten per cent of London’s bus network will be zero-emission as the network has committed to only ordering zero-emission buses when buying new buses for its fleet.
Khan’s commitment, to make the entire fleet of buses in London zero-emission by 2037, will also be brought forward by three years to 2034.
But he added that “with government funding the entire fleet could be zero-emission by 2030.”
TfL said that four tonnes of carbon could be saved by 2037, and moving the date forward to 2030 would save an additional one million tonnes.
“London will no longer procure new diesel or hybrid buses and will only procure zero-emission buses,” the Mayor announced after denouncing London’s “toxic” air as a “shameful health crisis”.
“In the year of COP26 and after setting out my ambition for London to be net zero by 2030, I’m committed to do all I can to help clean up the transport network and reduce its emissions,” he added.
He added that the whole of the capital’s bus fleet is now compliant with strict Euro VI emission standards – the same standards as the Ultra Low Emission Zone.
The announcement coincides with a summit, organised by the Mayor, on the decarbonisation of buses across the UK.
The Zero-emission Bus Summit will see central government and local authority representatives, bus operators, manufacturers, policy makers and other stakeholders gather at City hall to push forward the adoption of zero-emission buses across the country.
The changes to London’s bus fleet will, TfL said, “give British bus manufacturers confidence in large orders enabling them to significantly ramp up production” and help local authorities “to progress towards zero-emission targets that would not be possible otherwise.”
“We’ve done everything possible to make the bus network clean and now we are focussed on making it green,” said TfL’s director of buses, Louise Cheeseman.