Breathe: Seven Ways to Win a Greener World

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And … breathe. Interviewing Khan feels like watching Question Time with a solitary guest. The monologue is Khan at his migraine-inducing best – the verbal tics, the stats, the willingness to make political capital out of a powerful story. But it’s also important and impressive. The clean air (human rights) bill – also known as Ella’s Law – would enshrine the human right to healthy air in UK law. Khan has repeatedly called on the government to support the bill. Health officials estimate the death toll from human-made air pollution in the UK is between 29,000 and 43,000 every year. I stood saying I want to be the greenest mayor our city’s ever had, and got the biggest vote a sitting mayor’s ever received The new grace periods will be available from 30 January 2023 and also apply to the existing zone. The grace periods will apply until October 2027. Ella Kissi-Debrah was seven years old when she was diagnosed with asthma. She lived just 25 metres from the congested South Circular Road in Lewisham, South East London.

The Mayor’s determination and the critical concessions he has tabled to help people comply in this cost of living crisis are to be commended. We’re still trapped in this dirty decade of diesel and I urge City Hall to give us greater clarity now on what’s needed next so that everyone has time to prepare." Alex Williams, TfL’s Chief Customer and Strategy Officer, said: ”Expanding the ULEZ is vital for public health in this city. We know that there are more deaths that are attributed to toxic air in the city’s outer boroughs and that bringing in these world leading standards over a larger area will see millions more breathing cleaner air. Our experience of these schemes shows that they work, with significant reductions in pollution since the first zone was introduced in 2019. To help reduce pollution and improve the air that we breathe in Tower Hamlets, we’ve introduced the Breathe Clean campaign to reduce the impact of idling engines, installed seven air quality sensors across the borough, increased the amount of cycling hangers and planted over 740 of our goal of 1,000 trees across the borough.”

The Ultra Low Emission Zone was introduced in April 2019 and expanded to the North and South Circular in October 2021. Since becoming Mayor of London in 2016, he has declared a climate emergency, introduced the world’s first Ultra-Low I ask if he still runs. “I did 12k last weekend, 7k a few days ago. Another thing I didn’t realise until the pandemic is that it helped not just my physical fitness but also my mental fitness.” Then the seemingly invincible Khan says something surprising. He tells me he really suffered in the pandemic. “I lost my mojo. I didn’t have clarity of thinking. I wasn’t so sparky. I wasn’t inspiring my team.” Did he see a therapist? “No. I’ve got friends who are doctors. I spoke to Alastair Campbell about it a lot. Alastair was very helpful.” The Mayor also announced new measures to support disabled people, including extending the existing exemption periods for London’s disabled drivers and community transport minibuses run by not-for-profit organisations to October 2027 and October 2025 respectively, and introducing new exemption periods for disabled drivers and wheelchair accessible vehicles. This will mean that over a quarter of a million disabled Londoners could be eligible for the new exemption periods, including those who automatically qualify for a Blue Badge. The Mayor is providing further support through scrapping the fee for drivers to sign up to Auto-Pay for the ULEZ and Congestion Charge.

While significant progress has been made, with a substantial reduction in the number of Londoners living in areas exceeding legal limits for NO 2, tens of thousands of Londoners still breathe illegally polluted air and 99 per cent of Londoners live in areas exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended guidelines for PM2.5, which are much tighter than the legal standards.Ahead of a general election that is likely to take place before the end of 2024, Khan’s book reminds us that this approach didn’t work for Goldsmith at the ballot box. Ultimately, as its title promises, Breathe is a breath of fresh air, offering an antidote to cynicism and demonstrating the power of a politics that aims to bring people together in the search for solutions. Do you think parenthood has made you more engaged in your activism, raising two children in London with air pollution being what it is? One of the things I’ve realised is that when people think of climate change, they think of it happening “over there” - in Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, or Islands in the West Indies. Or if it is happening to us, that it's in 30, 40 or 50 years' time. Each of the seven main chapters explores a barrier to action: apathy, cynicism, cost, and so on. But having set up this structure, Khan immediately abandons it, promising an opening chapter on fatalism in politics but instead giving a linear account of his career, leading up to his election as mayor of London in 2016.