Clearing the air: green strategy for a healthier city, with London's Deputy Mayor Shirley Rodrigues

The Green Alliance Podcast

Green Alliance

Environment, Uk, Farming, Green Alliance, News, Sustainability, Society & Culture, Government

4.9 • 34 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Air pollution is one of the most pressing issues faced by London today. Affecting both public health and the environment, improving air quality is essential to making the city a safer and more sustainable place to live. So how can this be achieved? Shirley Rodrigues, London's Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, is working to deliver an environmental strategy for the city which will tackle air pollution. This includes policies ranging from implementing the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to rewilding London. Our policy adviser Sophie O'Connell sat down with the Deputy Mayor to discuss the rationale behind the planned ULEZ expansion and what it means for Londoners and the environment. This episode explores the relationship between health and the environment, clears the air around ULEZ and explains how people can support initiatives to green London. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep up with our work and read our blog for the latest environmental commentary.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. We're the charity and think tank that's all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.
0:09.0	I'm Sophia Connell, policy advisor at Green Alliance.
0:12.0	In this episode, I speak to Shirley Rodriguez, London's deputy mayor for the environment and energy since 2016.
0:19.0	Shirley is working to deliver the London Mayor's
0:21.7	vision for making the city greener, fairer and healthier through implementing London's
0:26.2	environmental strategy, which includes programmes to reduce air pollution, such as implementing
0:31.1	the ultra-low emission zone or U-LES, as well as greening and rewilding the city. We discussed the
0:37.2	rationale behind the planned London-wide ULES expansion
0:40.2	and what it means for Londoners air quality in our environment.
0:50.8	Thanks so much, Shirley, for joining us today.
0:53.4	Welcome to the podcast. It's great to speak to you.
0:56.0	Hello, thank you. And for those that aren't familiar to the ULES policy, can you give us a bit of an overview of what the ULES is, the rationale behind it and the planned expansion for August 2023?
1:07.8	So the ultra-low mission zone or U-LES is a sort of signature policy of the Mayor of London
1:11.8	Sadiq Khan's agenda for reducing air pollution in London. We want to meet the World Health
1:18.2	Organisation targets by 2030, which is faster than the government has adopted recently,
1:23.8	in recognition that there is no safe level of air pollution, so we want to tackle that straight away.
1:28.5	But it's part of a wider agenda on improving London's environment when Sadiq was elected in 2016.
1:34.5	He wanted London to regain its mantle as the green city in the world and that leadership
1:38.1	and a number of areas from air pollution, but climate change, biodiversity, waste and so on.
1:43.8	The ultra-lom emission zone, people might be more familiar with it as a sort of clean air zone.
1:47.6	And it was first introduced in 2019.
1:50.6	So I had the joy of trying to implement that in a sort of quite a small area in central London.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -697 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Green Alliance, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Green Alliance and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.