Dirty truth about jet-set Sadiq’s green credentials...
London Mayor and team take enough flights to reach Moon
SADIQ Khan has been branded a hypocrite for campaigning on green issues while he and his team have racked up enough air miles to reach the Moon since he became Mayor of London.
Mr Khan and his senior staff have travelled 280,000 miles around the world despite his warnings of a ‘climate emergency’ threatening the planet.
Their globetrotting has produced 180 tons of carbon dioxide – so much that it would reportedly take twoand-a-half acres of trees 34 years to cleanse it from the atmosphere.
It comes after actress Emma Thompson flew first class to New York on Friday, having flown from Los Angeles to London at Easter to join the Extinction Rebellion climate change protests that brought the capital to a standstill. At the time, she said: ‘We should all fly less.’
Mr Khan is keen to flaunt his credentials as a green campaigner, and met the eco protesters last week.
Last year, he declared a ‘climate emergency’ and vowed to step in if the Government failed to act.
The mayor insisted he and his aides were ‘doing everything in our power’ to slow climate change.
But records from City Hall reveal that he has travelled nearly 32,000 miles on official business outside the UK since entering office in 2016.
He has taken trips to the US, India and Germany that were dismissed by critics as self-promoting tours to generate publicity.
Mr Khan’s eight deputies have also embarked on lengthy foreign trips. Between them they have accumulated a total of 280,000 miles of travel abroad, mostly by aircraft.
Opponents accused Mr Khan of not living up to his green rhetoric.
Susan Hall, a Tory on the London Assembly, told The Sun: ‘Sadiq Khan goes to great lengths to brandish his green credentials, including cosying up to the Extinction Rebellion protesters and reassuring them that he is on their side. While the mayor talks a good game when it comes to the environment, it is clear that his own actions fail to match his words.’
She claimed the environmental damage he and his elected deputies have caused ‘leaves the mayor open to the charge of rank hypocrisy’.
But a spokesman for Mr Khan said: ‘Trips abroad made by Sadiq and his team bang the drum for London, helping deliver prosperity, growth and jobs for the capital.
‘All London mayors have promoted the city overseas, including Boris Johnson, who in one three-month period made three long-haul visits, including twice to the US.’
‘His actions fail to match his words’
BRITaIN and other Western nations must cut consumption to avoid the biggest mass extinction in human history, a UN-backed report warns.
a million species face being wiped off the face of the Earth unless we act now, say environment experts.
The three-year global assessment, drawn up by 455 scientists in 50 countries, says the natural world is ‘essential for human existence’. But a third of marine mammals and 40 per cent of amphibians are under threat of extinction.
and more than half a million land-based animal and plant species have lost the habitat they need to survive, as more than a third of the world’s land has been taken over for farming.
The 1,800-page landmark report concludes that the global population, which has doubled in the past 50 years, cannot keep growing and continue consuming and wasting more each year.
Plastic waste has increased ten-fold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species, while fertilisers entering the ocean have created ‘dead zones’ devoid of life.
Dr Kate Brauman, a co-author of the report, said: ‘We need to change the way we define what makes us happy and satisfied, so that we consume less instead of more. Global consumption cannot keep increasing year on year – we don’t need bigger houses and more flights to foreign countries. People need to think about changing their diet so they eat less meat and to think about their use of disposable fashion.’
The overriding conclusion of the report is that the threat to wildlife is a threat to humanity. We rely on animals and plants for food, while plants keep the air clean and provide fuel. Some 70 per cent of cancer drugs come from natural sources. Wildlife is declining at an ‘unprecedented’ rate and many of the one million threatened species could vanish within decades, according to the study.
The main cause is farming and fishing, which has seen a third of land worldwide given over to crops and livestock. Pesticides and habitat loss are also believed to be killing vital pollinating insects like bees, which poses a threat to our own food supply. Hunting and overfishing are also a problem. Climate change is only the third biggest threat to the natural world, followed by pollution and invasive alien species. Based on evidence from 15,000 scientific and government sources, the report advises slowing population growth, while stating that a ‘good life’ does not have to mean ‘ever-increasing material consumption’.
Sir Robert Watson, a co- chairman of the report, said it painted an ‘ominous picture’, adding: ‘We cannot afford to wait two or five years – action is needed now.’ The leading scientist said action could include walking and biking rather than using cars, reducing food waste, using water more carefully and having smaller families.
Mark Wright, of the World Wide Fund For Nature, said the report ‘paints a terrifying picture of a broken world’.
It is hoped the evidence will help draw up new global targets which will be negotiated at a UN meeting in China in 2020. John Spicer, professor of marine zoology at the University of Plymouth, said: ‘The answer may well have its seeds in the movement which resulted in more than 1.4 million young people around the world taking part in school strikes for climate change.’
The Mail has joined the effort to protect wildlife through its longstanding plastic campaign, which has led to a tax on carrier bags. We also backed last month’s Great British Spring Clean, launched by Keep Britain Tidy.