Posted on 30/04/24 by Yisum Heneghan
Bob Ward, Chair of the LCCP, sent a letter to all 13 Mayoral candidates to pledge to make climate change adaptation and resilience a priority if they are to win the election on 2 May 2024.
He highlighted the significant negative impacts that Londoners are already suffering due to more frequent intense climate events, the need to work collaboratively with different sectors, and a call for the Mayor to publish and respond to the London Climate Resilience Review.
Please see the letter here:
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I am writing to you as a candidate for Mayor of London to ask you to pledge to make climate change adaptation and resilience a priority if you win the election on 2 May 2024.
London is a great global city, but its status in the future is threatened by the growing direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and more frequent and intense heavy rainfall, flooding, heatwaves, and droughts. London is already suffering significant impacts, and its exposure and vulnerability has been demonstrated by, for example, over 380 deaths from heatwaves in London. In summer 2022, over 2000 properties flooded during heavy rainfall events. In July 2021, and an estimated cost of £500 million per day to London’s economy during severe drought. (1)
These impacts will grow until the world reaches net zero greenhouse gas emissions, so for the next 25 years at least the threat to lives and livelihoods in the capital will increase. While action is already being taken to make London more resilient to these impacts, they will increase and pose progressively bigger challenges to our city’s success. London’s poorest and most vulnerable people face the biggest impacts and have the greatest barriers to adapt. Lives and livelihoods will be lost if strong and urgent action is not taken.
The London Climate Change Partnership, which I chair, will seek to work with the Mayor and other decision-makers in the public, private and third sectors in order to ensure London becomes the most climate-resilient city in the world. All decision-makers, including political leaders, business leaders, and citizens will need to play their part in making London climate-resilient.
This serious and growing threat is also an opportunity. Smart and timely investments in London’s climate resilience are likely to offer significant returns, not just in terms of avoided losses and damages to health, property, and economic activity in the city, but also by contributing to a safe, heathy, and prosperous place to live and work.
London needs a mayor who takes climate change adaptation and resilience seriously and who makes it a priority. Businesses and households will only invest in climate resilience if London’s Mayor demonstrates leadership on this issue. The Mayor will be able to call on world-class knowledge and expertise on climate change adaptation and resilience within the capital’s public institutions, businesses, and universities.
The current Mayor commissioned Emma Howard Boyd to carry out the London Climate Resilience Review. The interim report was published in February 2024 and the final report has now been completed. I ask you to pledge that, if you are elected, you will publish the final report within a month of the election and within six months publish a full response to the report, particularly in relation to the recommendations aimed at the Mayor.
I look forward to your pledge.
Yours sincerely,
Bob Ward
Chair
London Climate Change Partnership
[1] London Climate Resilience Review Interim report