Red Ken Turns Green

The colourful Mayor of London is most used to the label "Red Ken" for his far left solcialist, often militant, political opinions. But does the popular Mayor of London now deserve the name "Green Ken". An article in the Guardian Newspaper would suggest he does.

John Vidal writes that Ken is, "These days possessed of one great idea. Climate change, and how to avert it, consumes him.  It now informs all his decisions on transport. It is top of his agenda for social housing and new building developments."

Sited as evidence of this are factors such as "his desire to steal the best ideas from other cities and to communicate with anyone the urgency and scale of the problem." And a recent visit to City Hall by Sir David Attenborough who talked to staff about the acceleration of change.

Livingstone also signed up to Friends of the Earth’s lobby for a law to reduce national emissions annually. If his powers allowed he says he would do far more. But, he is doing as much as he can with the powers he has, and wishes to implement good green ideas from around the world.

Livingstone admits his
position has changed, is changing, as information emerges. He says, "I think
what is happening is absolutely terrifying. When I first ran for mayor
in 2000, the scientific consensus was that we would reach the climate
change tipping point around the second half of the century. Depending
on which scientific evidence you look at, it’s down to between two and
10 years. There’s no time for more studies or surveys."
His most controversial green policy to date was the imposition of the Congestion Charge designed to reduce the number of people driving in central london.  Evidence of the success of the policy is seen n the figures. "Four years ago, 38% of
people used their cars daily in London, it’s now 19%; there has been a
72% increase in cycling over four years." A massive increase in the use of busses also solved the problem  and they too are being converted to be more green.

Many more green policies are in the pipeline that will target carbon polluters. He will introduce
Britain’s first low emission zone, which will ban heavy goods vehicles
and cut emissions by 4% across much of central London. A new
organisation will advise and oversee the greening of people’s homes and
lives. It will be easier for householders to install wind and
photovoltaic energy systems; new congestion charges will be shortly
announced that will pile more cost on to polluting cars. And, he is said to
be delighted that Richmond council, in west London, is planning to
increase parking charges for cars that are heavy polluters.

Whilst  London is way behind some other European cities, it seems that it is leading the way amongst the UK cities. And for sure it would seem that Ken has changed his colours.