Carbon emissions from England’s planned £27bn roadbuilding programme will be about 100 times greater than the government has stated, according to expert witnesses in a court challenge.
Environmental campaigners are seeking a judicial review of the second roads investment strategy (RIS2), which was described by ministers when launched as “the largest ever investment in English strategic roads”, paying for 4,000 miles of road and including such schemes as the Lower Thames Crossing and the Stonehenge tunnel.
Lawyers for Transport Action Network (TAN) claim that the strategy is incompatible with climate crisis commitments. Government lawyers have argued that the additional net greenhouse gases from the roadbuilding are de minimis, or too small to be material.
Phil Goodwin, emeritus professor of transport policy at UCL, said in a deposition that “the total emissions of carbon from RIS2 schemes reported by Highways England in its separate scheme appraisals give a number which is roundly 100 times greater than that suggested by DfT witnesses”.

The CS11 cycle route from Swiss Cottage to Regent’s Park has been sensationally blocked by a High Court judge in what seems set to be a landmark ruling.
Anti-CS11 campaigners Jessica Learmond-Criqui and Daniel Howard outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Picture: POLLY HANCOCK – Credit: Archant
Sir Ross Cranston, presiding over the case, ruled Westminster City Council was right in its legal challenge heard last week at the same court, and that Transport for London’s current plans for the route are unlawful.
It effectively sends TfL back to the drawing board to come up with fuller traffic modelling, and the prospect of consulting over a new scheme. A consultation on the original programme found 60% support across London – except in the areas that actually neighboured the route, where there was strong opposition.
TfL said this morning it was already considering appealing the decision.
The ruling, in a sparse courtroom at the High Court in the Strand, follows a judicial review hearing on Thursday last week at which the transport authority argued it had the “whip hand” over councils on strategic planning matters, stemming from laws passed in 1999 to set up the body and the mayor of London’s office.

A judge at Brussels Criminal Court heard the man in his 40s stole a cycle in October and has 17 previous convictions.
The judge said: ‘It is therefore advisable to severely punish the defendant who commits crimes the gravity of which is important for the planet, since the victim deprived of his bicycle has no other option than to use a more polluting means of transport.
Ecological crimes are usually restricted to actions that have a more direct impact on the environment, like polluting rivers or emitting greenhouse gases.
But campaigners are increasingly calling for the scope of such crimes to be greatly widened.

A national campaign to help to get people back on board public transport in the UK has been launched by sustainable transport charity, Campaign for Better Transport.
The Way Forward campaign is calling on the UK government to support public transport by actively encouraging people to use buses, trains, coaches and trams as restrictions ease and introducing an incentive scheme to help to boost passenger numbers as part of a national plan to place public transport at the heart of a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive of CfBT said: “The events of the last year have made people less confident about using public transport, but, as restrictions continue to ease, we all need to start getting back on board. That’s why we’ve launched this campaign to urge the government to reassure people that public transport is safe again and to introduce a national scheme of discounted fares to encourage people to use it.

According to Peter Ackroyd, a novelist and poet, 18th century London “rang with the hammers of artisans and the cries of tradesmen”, producing more noise than anywhere else in the country. Industrialised London was the noisiest city in the whole world, according to Walter Besant. Hogarth translated the maddening sounds of London onto canvas in his 1741 painting, which depicted an enraged musician despairing at the cacophony of sounds around him.
Although urban noise isn’t new, it hasn’t ever really been taken seriously as a public health issue that policy can help resolve. Have we underestimated the harm that noise has on our neighbourhoods, our health and our wellbeing?
Sound and health
There is increasing evidence that long-term exposure to noise pollution has negative effects on health. Cases of anxiety, depression, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes have been shown to increase when noise levels do. According to the World Health Organisation, 1.6 million healthy life years are lost every year because of environmental noise, mainly due to the cortisol that it makes us release.

During the discussion, Mayor Aboutaleb speaks about the challenges facing his city at the moment, the steps he’s taking to face them, and the importance of collaboration in building resilience against them.
Elsewhere, the Mayor speaks specifically about climate resiliency in Rotterdam, describing how cities must continue to innovate to protect against climate stresses, what this looks like in Rotterdam and across the Netherlands, and which examples of climate resilience innovation he finds most impressive.