‘The government is failing’: Hackney’s Green councillors join four-day climate action in Westminster

Xr Hackney & Tower Hamlets outside the Department for Transport. Photograph: XR Hackney

Hackney’s Green councillors joined a protest at the Department for Transport to highlight the impact of air pollution on the environment.

Cllr Alastair Binnie-Lubbock and Cllr Zoë Garbett were among other Hackney residents taking part in the four-day Big One climate campaign.

The action in Westminster demanded an end to fossil fuels and called for a citizens’ assembly to help inform the government’s response to the climate emergency.

The event involved more than 200 groups, including Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth.

XR Hackney & Tower Hamlets was one of the groups staging a two-day picket at the Department for Transport on Horseferry Road to “highlight the devastating effect that air pollution is having on the living world.”

It follows a report commissioned by the Greater London Authority which found that air pollution affects “all stages of life, starting with low sperm count and increased risk of miscarriage and continuing into later life with chronic illness, cancer, strokes, and effects on mental health and cognition”.

Cllr Binnie-Lubbock said campaigners want “the government to start implementing actions to address the climate emergency that meet the extreme challenges and risks we face”.

He added: “Transport is the UK’s largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas emissions, producing 24 per cent of the UK’s total emissions in 2020, and the scale of the transport revolution we need to see is not being realised – with last month’s spending review halving the budget for walking and cycling which was already not sufficient to meet its own targets.

“All this while they push for airport expansions and allow huge road-building projects like London’s own Silvertown Tunnel to go ahead, locking us into polluting private vehicles for decades to come.”

XR want to see an “immediate and rapid” move away from fossil fuel use in transport, an expansion in public transport, lower fares, electrification, and Ella’s Law – “creating a legal obligation for the government to keep air pollution within safe limits set by the World Health Organisation”.

This follows the death of nine-year-old south Londoner Ella Kissi-Debrah from asthma induced by air pollution.

Madeleine Bailey from XR Hackney & Tower Hamlets said: “The government is failing to act swiftly and decisively enough to address the climate and health impacts of the fossil fuel economy. Transforming our transport system would tackle one of the biggest sources of emissions in the UK and improve the lives of the thousands of people whose health is harmed by toxic air.”

Hackney Council declared a climate emergency in 2019 and has introduced measures including the controversial low traffic neighbourhoods in a bid to cut pollution from motor vehicles.