The recent Climate Change Committee (CCC) 2022 Progress Report to Parliament criticised the Government’s road building plans for increasing demand and emissions. It stated that they should not be encouraging unconstrained traffic growth and needed to be compatible with net-zero. Could we finally be turning the corner on road building in England?
In its report, the CCC, an independent statutory body, applauded the Government’s ambition on climate change, but was very critical on the lack of delivery and progress in many areas, including transport. It also made a number of new recommendations, including the need for targets for reducing car travel. It noted that both Scotland and Wales had adopted such targets and saw this as important in bringing about immediate carbon reductions while the vehicle fleet is still transitioning to electric vehicles (which of course is no silver bullet).
Bicycle graveyards: why do so many bikes end up underwater? | Cycling | The Guardian
Every decade or so, the city of Paris drains the Canal Saint-Martin. The nearly three-mile-long waterway, which runs south across a swathe of the Right Bank, was originally constructed to keep Paris clean, supplying fresh water to a city plagued by cholera and dysentery. But for the two centuries of the canal’s existence, it has often served a different – in fact, opposite – function. It is a dumping ground, a big liquid trash can. The periodic draining is therefore also an unveiling. The water recedes, and the stuff kicked or heaved or furtively dropped into the canal over the preceding few thousand nights is revealed.
It’s now over two weeks since my favourite cycle lane, #C9, fully opened along its entire length from Hammersmith to Kew Bridge… – Leo Murray – Twitter
@crisortunity 28/7/22
It’s now over two weeks since my favourite cycle lane, #C9, fully opened along its entire length from Hammersmith to Kew Bridge, so I wanted to do a quick thread about Network Effects and the politics of road space reallocation in London and elsewhere 1/n
Rethinking road safety – part 1 – Nicer cities, liveable places
Can you imagine how much more dangerous it would have been working in a factory 200 years ago, in comparison to what it’s like now (in the UK at least)?
Shared bikes to integrate with Solent’s MaaS app – Transport Xtra
Portsmouth City Council and Solent Transport will introduce a Department for Transport-funded bicycle and e-bike rental scheme this summer. Southampton City Council and Isle of Wight Council will also join the scheme, with Beryl as the approved supplier for the Solent region.
Reclaiming the roads – Works in Progress – Carlton Reid
Carlton Reid 21st July 2022
Road space is a special good. Some ways of using it have huge impacts on other road users. Until relatively recently, roads were shared between a messy mix of cyclists, stagecoaches, carts, horses, and pedestrians, but with no dominant user. Today the road is almost completely dominated by the car.
(ONE MINUTE RESPONSE) – Deadline THIS Friday 29th July––TfL consultation on expanding ULEZ to most of London––August 2023
TfL is running a consultation on expanding the Ultra Low Emission Zone to nearly all of London, in August 2023.
This expansion would help get the most polluting cars off the road, helping our children to breathe easier. 1 in 10 children have asthma in London – we urgently need measures to reduce air pollution.
You can use this really quick email tool to respond (takes literally ONE minute).
https://bit.ly/uleztool
Strengthen your net zero strategy, High Court judge tells Government – Transportxtra.com
21 July 2022
ClientEarth lawyers Sam Hunter-Jones and Sophie Marjanac outside the High Court on the first day of the hearing
The Government’s Net Zero Strategy does not meet its obligations under the Climate Change Act to produce detailed climate policies, a High Court ruling has found.
The ruling follows a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in June, which considered the legal challenges brought by Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth, Good Law Project and environmental campaigner Jo Wheatley.
The judgment came on Monday 18 July, the same day as the Met Office’s first ever red alert for extreme heat.
Climate change: Key UN finding widely misinterpreted – BBC News
A key finding in the latest IPCC climate report has been widely misinterpreted, according to scientists involved in the study.
In the document, researchers wrote that greenhouse gases are projected to peak “at the latest before 2025”.
This implies that carbon could increase for another three years and the world could still avoid dangerous warming.
But scientists say that’s incorrect and that emissions need to fall immediately.
The IPCC’s most recent report focused on how to limit or curtail emissions of the gases that are the root cause of warming.
In their summary for policymakers, the scientists said it was still possible to avoid the most dangerous levels of warming by keeping the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century.
This will take a herculean effort, with carbon emissions needing to shrink by 43% by the end of this decade to stay under this threshold of danger.
How Sussex farmers plan to rewild a nature-rich green corridor to the sea | Rewilding | The Guardian
Patrick Barkham
When farmer James Baird read of Isabella Tree’s vision for rewilded land stretching from her Sussex estate all the way to the sea at Shoreham, he phoned up Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, and told them: “You’re going to the wrong bit of coast – I’ve got the last bit.”
Now Baird, a self-described “hard-nosed arable farmer” who owns virtually the last slice of undeveloped West Sussex coast at Climping Gap, the other side of Worthing to Shoreham, is the driving force behind the creation of a wildlife-rich green corridor linking the rewilded Knepp estate to the sea.
The Weald to Waves project aims to create at least 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of nature-friendly land in corridors running from the rolling hills of the Weald down the valleys of the Rivers Arun and Adur to boost biodiversity on land and in the sea.
Membership
