Mayoral candidates set out rival decarbonisation visions
Published 7 April 2021
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Labour has set a target for the West Midlands to become the UK’s first zero carbon region if it wins next month’s mayoral election.
In his manifesto, the party’s mayoral candidate Liam Byrne says: “We can rebuild prosperity for the many in our region by leading the Green Industrial Revolution. The region that sparked the carbon revolution should now lead the zero carbon revolution.”
Byrne, who was chief secretary to the Treasury in the last Labour government, has previously described current West Midlands mayor Andy Street’s carbon neutrality target of 2041 as “too slow” and that it should be 2030 instead.
Byrne’s Green New Deal for the Green Heart of Britain, announced last year, included proposals to retrofit over 100,000 homes and deliver solar energy to twice that number of dwellings.
In his manifesto, Street says his 2041 carbon neutrality plan will create as many as 21,000 new green jobs by 2026.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has also unveiled his mayoral manifesto in which he pledges to “lead a clean energy revolution” in the capital.
In the manifesto, the Labour candidate says he is proud that his energy company London Power is up and running, even though the Octopus-backed venture was serving just 4,512 households at the end of last, according to its latest quarterly report, published in January.
The manifesto also says that Khan will use the combined energy buying power of the Greater London Authority (GLA), Transport for London (TfL), and other mayoral bodies to obtain the cleanest bulk purchase power agreements and increasingly power the Tube from renewable sources.
The mayor says he wants to extend this offer to boroughs, and that he will ensure TfL is using its land to support renewable energy generation.
And the manifesto says the GLA will explore opportunities to set up a “leading” centre to pilot “innovative and deep” approaches to retrofitting properties while making sure housing on GLA land is built to the ‘highest’ environmental standards.
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