Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged to ensure all new buses ordered by Transport for London (TfL) in the capital will now be zero-emission.
His commitment to deliver a 100% zero-emission bus fleet in London has been brought forward by three years, from 2037 to 2034.
Making buses zero-emission is expected to save four million tonnes of carbon by 2037 and moving the date forward to 2030 will save an additional one million tonnes of carbon – but government support is needed to achieve the latter goal, according to the mayor.
Mr Khan said: “In the year of COP26 and after setting out my ambition for London to be net zero by 2030, I’m committed to do all I can to help clean up the transport network and reduce its emissions.
“London’s toxic air is a shameful health crisis which is causing premature deaths and stunting the growth of children’s lungs. Today, as part of our work to tackle both the harmful emissions we breathe and the climate emergency, I am proud to announce that London will no longer procure new diesel or hybrid buses and will only procure zero-emission buses.
“Today’s announcement builds on the progress we’ve already made tackling toxic air pollution. I’ve worked hard to ensure TfL’s entire bus fleet across now meets the ULEZ standards, this includes 550 zero-emission buses. We need to act now and accelerate the transition to a greener future, with cleaner air for all.”
The announcement coincides with the Zero Emission Bus Summit the mayor is hosting at City Hall today, which will bring together central government and local authority representatives, bus operators, manufacturers, policy makers and several other stakeholders.
TfL currently has 950 clean buses on the road or on order, supporting the UK Government’s ambition to reduce carbon emissions by 68% by 2030.
Louise Cheeseman, TfL’s Director of Buses added: “The world has woken up to the desperate need to make big changes to tackle the climate emergency and the single biggest thing we can do is to move to a zero-emission bus network as soon as possible.
“We’ve done everything possible to make the bus network clean and now we are focussed on making it green, which is why it’s so important that we’re able to commit that all new buses in London will be zero-emission. We’re now working to have a completely zero-emission bus network as soon as possible and with Government support we could do this by 2030 while also stimulating the bus market.”
