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'Green' Mayor slashes environment budget
Pippa Crerar, City Hall Editor27.11.08
BORIS Johnson's attempts to cast himself as a "green" mayor hit a stumbling block today after it emerged he had cut almost £500,000 from the environment budget.
The Mayor set out his plans to make London the eco-capital of the world yesterday by reducing carbon emissions and tapping into the new energy economy. However, on the same day he announced a 10 per cent staff cut in his green team and scrapped his £140,000 environment programme and the £87,000 London Schools awards. Labour environment spokesman Murad Qureshi said: "Boris's anti-climate change views are well known; it wasn't so long ago he was siding with George W Bush on Kyoto and likening belief in climate change to a stone-age religion. His actions in office suggest he hasn't changed his mind."
A spokeswoman for the Mayor said the move had been ordered as part of an efficiency drive across City Hall.
She added: "The Mayor is committed to investing at least £100million on environment and climate change programmes over the next four years." Mr Johnson has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 60per cent by 2025.
Reader views (6)
Must be scrapeing the money together to pay for abolishing the western C-Charge!!!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Boris green,Hes one big school boy running around London like its the school tuck shop.The sad thing is Londoners voted for him,i thought thay were a little more sophisticated than that.
- Kev, London
Even 'green' mayors know the realities of finance.
As for nukes being build 250 feet below sea level - its amazing how 1 to 2 cm in the next hundred years (the early UN study just a few years ago) became most recently US 'news' touting "200 feet or more" in as little as a decade. The science is shall we say, dubious at best. The hysteria so overwrought I'm surprised the gloom and doom crowd just doesn't kill themselves to stop polluting and save us poor 'uneducated' souls.
- Trunk, US
Can't get my head round this. The greens want our carbon footprint reduced, otherwise all the ice will melt and sea levels will rise by 250 feet (Max). To reduce carbon emmissins we are going to build new nuclear power stations. Where? Oh, on the coast where they may be 250 foot below sea level. Where have I gone wrong. It doesn't matter one iota what Boris does with his £500K, it ain't going to make any difference to us. No are any green taxes applied by Nu Lab. Without the rest of the world being proactive, instead of busily trading Carbon credits there is no point in bleating on about a miniscule amount of funding, because like CO2 it all ends up as hot air!!!!!
- Alan, Carlisle UK
The green mayor? you've got to be joking, he is about to suffocate the population of west london.
- James Hennessy, london england
If Greens insist on making the amount spent on green pork into a litmus test, we are all going to be toast.
- Bloke, London
