by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, not to be confused with the Lord Mayor, recently announced proposals for a multi-million pound "London Green Fund" to boost London's low carbon economy, create jobs and tackle climate change. The fund is expected to progress energy efficiency measures to cut carbon across London, unlock savings on fuel bills. The resulting revenue will then pay off the loans to be ploughed back into the green fund.
The fund aims to leverage millions of pounds of private investment, bolster energy and new waste technology initiatives and enable the development of carbon cutting infrastructure, at the scale required to meet the Mayor's 60 per cent carbon reduction target by 2025.
Committed to provide an initial £4 million to develop and kick-start the fund, the Mayor intends to attract co-investment from a range of bodies, such as the EU, philanthropic funds, climate charities and the private sector. London Thames Gateway companies are likely to benefit from a whole host of new opportunities that will arise from the fund. Those operating in the retrofit market may also experience a significant boost if local public sector organisations such as NHS Trusts, universities and borough councils are allowed to use the fund to have their large building estates retrofitted.
The London Development Agency (LDA) is currently developing a simple framework for organisations to replicate the energy efficiency programme that is currently being implemented in 100 Greater London Authority group buildings.
The Mayor's green fund plans are contained in "Leading to a Greener London", detailing his environment and climate change priorities for London. The Mayor wants to improve Londoners' quality of life through an ambitious series of environmental improvements – tackling climate change, reducing pollution/improving air quality, consuming fewer resources and using resources more effectively – which also exploit the new opportunities coming from developing a low carbon economy.
It is about time that we got things rolling but as to whether this is going to be any better than the Boris bikes is certainly a question. Far too much playing around is happening and half measures rather than tackling issues face on.
While cycle hire schemes are a nice idea so far not a single one, whether in London or other cities around the globe, seems to have been a success.
What we need really, instead of such schemes, is proper cycle paths in every part of our towns and cities and across most of the country in the way as they exist in many parts of the European mainland, with the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany in the lead.
London's cycle super highway is also one of those half-baked ideas that seems to have been badly thought out for instead of separating the cyclists from the danger of the cars cyclists still have to negotiate serious traffic issues on those routes.
One wanted to have a headline grabbing idea and gave birth to that baby, as so often, rather prematurely before the idea had been properly matured and researched.
Yes, creating proper separated cycle lanes will cost money but it will prevent accidents and it will get many more people to cycle and thus reducing the amount of car journeys.
© 2010
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