The City of London has recently published a report on the first four years of its Climate Action Plan.
Taking Climate Action: Our Progress, a report on the first four years of the City of London Climate Action Plan can be downloaded here.
Notable in the report is the failure to properly address the issue of housing and the way in which it links to the climate emergency and biodiversity agenda.
It is hard to see how the City of London Corporation can meet its Scope 3 net zero goals [see defintions below] by 2040 without addressing housing, especially as Golden Lane Estate repairs are not scheduled to be complete until 2035 at the earliest and are only partially funded. They are also being investigated as repairs and not as part of climate emergency planning.
The current plans only address issues like double glazing and insulation but not the replacement of old gas boilers and the installation of renewable energy types of heating systems.
The Climate Action report outlines climate change measures benefitting just 76 residents yet the City manages 4832 flats – 2832 living in HRA estates and 2000 living in the Barbican. The only mention of residents is of the people living in a sheltered housing scheme. There is a case study, the Golden Lane Bike Project, set up by Imagine Golden Lane at Net Zero, which is hopefully useful, but which obviously makes a very modest contribution to alleviating climate emergency.
The commitment to creating heat zone networks is in line with government thinking but does not appear to benefit residential areas.
There is no attempt to address overheating. As offices get denser, within a largely medieval street pattern, the impact on residential neighbours becomes of increasing importance.
It would be useful to understand the movement of hot air and the possibilities of its being recycled. Islington and Transport for London, for example, recycle surplus heat from the Northern Line at the Bunhill Project.
It would be useful to coordinate the biodiversity work with the net zero work and especially with the work of the housing department. Although there is significant investment in biodiversity initiatives, including planned improvements on Fann Street, these are restricted to parks like Finsbury Circus Gardens and streets. There are no plans for addressing lack of biodiversity within Golden Lane Estate itself.
Cripplegate Common Councillors have been briefed on this topic and will be discussing it further in the new year. If you are interested in exploring these isues in more detail, please get in touch with Paul Lincoln.
[Definitions]
Scopes 1, 2 and 3 for a city: (GHG Protocol, Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories) Scope 1 means GHG emissions from sources located within the city boundary Scope 2 means GHG emissions occurring as a consequence of the use of grid- supplied electricity, heat, steam and/or cooling within the city boundary Scope 3 means all other GHG emissions that occur outside the city boundary as a result of activities taking place within the city boundary
Imagine Golden Lane at Net Zero 