Newham Council has declared a “climate emergency” and introduced a raft of environmental measures to tackle global warming, poor air quality and waste.
A meeting of Newham’s Full Council last night backed a motion by Councillor Sasha Das Gupta calling on the Mayor to pledge to make the London Borough of Newham carbon neutral by 2030 and carbon zero by 2050.
Among the measures called for are:
- A “green audit” of all council services to give weight to environmental and sustainability impacts – alongside cost and value for money.
- Provide air quality monitoring devices to all school
- The Council to remove single-use plastics from council buildings
- Council to publish annual reports on progress towards reaching carbon neutral targets.
Introducing the first of two planned reports, Air Quality Action for LBN, Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz said: “To move forward on tackling environmental issues, in phase one we must tackle the air pollution in the borough - we should all note that the evidence is compelling. Public Health England confirm that Newham has the largest number of deaths attributable to air quality - seven out of every 100 deaths is as a result of poor air quality. Under this administration this is going to change.”
The Council will work across the borough and across council services, as well as reaching out to the residents, community groups, campaigners, the Mayor of London, Transport for London, neighbouring boroughs and partner bodies to specifically address poor air quality.
Mayor Fiaz said: “To deliver this at pace this administration has set up an air quality task force so that a joined up approach is taken within the council to address health, transport and environmental concerns which are integral to improving air quality and our environment.”
