Greater London Authority

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

This council declared a climate emergency on Dec. 1, 2019.

Climate pledges

We haven’t checked whether this council has made any climate pledges yet, but we will soon. If you’ve already found one, let us know!

Climate documents

Last update: March 16, 2022

Zero Carbon London: A 1.5ºc Compatible Plan

Action Plan · PDF

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Climate Plan Scorecard

This council’s climate plans as of 20th September 2021 were assessed and scored by trained Climate Emergency UK volunteers, as part of the Council Climate Plan Scorecards project.

Show the full Scorecard Read more about the scoring process

Section	Greater London Authority	Average combined authority council
Total score	66%	48%
Section 1 Governance, development and funding	10/21	9.5/21
Section 2 Mitigation and adaptation	12/18	9.4/18
Section 3 Commitment and integration	4/7	2.2/7
Section 4 Community, engagement and communications	8/9	5.0/9
Section 5 Measuring and setting emissions targets	4/5	3.0/5
Section 6 Co-benefits	4/4	2.6/4
Section 7 Diversity and inclusion	3/5	1.1/5
Section 8 Education, skills and training	2/5	2.5/5
Section 9 Ecological emergency	3/4	1.8/4

Emissions data

25432.7 ktCO2

Total 2020 emissions

2.8 tCO2

per person

15.9 ktCO2

per km²

39%

Domestic

29%

Transport

17%

Commercial

Public Sector

Industry

Agriculture

	value
2005	51.45	12608.72	17030.86	3789.70	3951.22	10782.10
2006	52.91	13637.63	16955.93	3959.89	4090.77	10424.31
2007	49.83	13120.83	16514.97	3872.32	3879.91	10231.75
2008	50.58	13288.09	16669.94	3851.36	3938.51	9502.07
2009	45.59	11779.78	15168.68	3399.59	3523.09	9233.10
2010	48.56	12544.24	16323.73	3598.39	3776.19	9354.01
2011	43.88	11163.90	14321.68	3194.09	3337.22	9143.15
2012	48.28	12299.70	15408.27	3442.03	3673.65	9029.83
2013	46.74	11518.72	15086.50	3208.66	3524.26	8873.84
2014	40.26	9593.58	12682.53	2818.82	2975.44	8838.78
2015	37.78	8455.40	12235.94	2587.22	2714.46	8800.13
2016	35.28	7206.93	11679.41	2305.18	2472.14	8913.05
2017	32.22	6408.25	10773.04	2131.53	2327.65	8928.96
2018	32.64	6178.24	10558.89	2104.20	2307.65	8834.96
2019	30.19	5459.62	10165.98	1904.81	2107.63	8676.10
2020	27.62	4411.87	9982.76	1697.09	1940.01	7364.34

Data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy “subset dataset”, representing carbon dioxide emissions within the scope of influence of local authorities.

These councils are the most similar to Greater London Authority in terms of emissions profile, deprivation, rural/urban population density, and geographical nearness. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council name	Similarity	Has plan	Carbon Neutral by	Declared emergency
London Borough of Ealing	89%	Yes	2030	April 2, 2019
London Borough of Croydon	88%	Yes	No target	July 15, 2019
London Borough of Redbridge	88%	Yes	2050	June 20, 2019
Royal Borough of Greenwich	87%	Yes	2030	June 26, 2019
Reading Borough Council	87%	Yes	2030	Feb. 26, 2019
Watford Borough Council	86%	No	2030	July 9, 2019
Luton Borough Council	86%	Yes	2040	Jan. 13, 2020
Portsmouth City Council	86%	No	2030	March 19, 2019
Southampton City Council	86%	Yes	2030	Sept. 18, 2019
London Borough of Hounslow	86%	Yes	2030	No

These councils are the most similar to Greater London Authority in terms of their emissions profile, based on the latest data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council name	Similarity	Has plan	Carbon Neutral by	Declared emergency
Brighton and Hove City Council	93%	Yes	2030	Dec. 13, 2018
Bristol City Council	92%	Yes	2025	Nov. 13, 2018
London Borough of Wandsworth	91%	Yes	2050	July 17, 2019
Coventry City Council	91%	No	No target	June 18, 2019
London Borough of Hounslow	91%	Yes	2030	No
London Borough of Brent	91%	No	2030	July 8, 2019
Reading Borough Council	90%	Yes	2030	Feb. 26, 2019
Ipswich Borough Council	89%	Yes	2030	July 9, 2019
Watford Borough Council	89%	No	2030	July 9, 2019
Southampton City Council	89%	Yes	2030	Sept. 18, 2019

Read more about how we calculate this.

Council name	Similarity	Has plan	Carbon Neutral by	Declared emergency
City of London	100%	No	2027	No
Westminster City Council	99%	Yes	2030	Sept. 18, 2019
London Borough of Islington	99%	Yes	2030	June 27, 2019
London Borough of Lambeth	99%	Yes	2030	Jan. 23, 2019
London Borough of Southwark	99%	No	2050	March 27, 2019
London Borough of Camden	99%	Yes	2030	April 8, 2019
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea	99%	Yes	2030	Oct. 1, 2019
London Borough of Hackney	99%	Yes	2040	June 28, 2019
London Borough of Wandsworth	99%	Yes	2050	July 17, 2019
London Borough of Tower Hamlets	99%	No	2025	July 17, 2019

These councils are the most similar to Greater London Authority in terms of the proportion of their population living in high deprivation, medium deprivation, and low deprivation neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council name	Similarity	Has plan	Carbon Neutral by	Declared emergency
London Borough of Croydon	89%	Yes	No target	July 15, 2019
London Borough of Ealing	87%	Yes	2030	April 2, 2019
London Borough of Redbridge	84%	Yes	2050	June 20, 2019
Reading Borough Council	83%	Yes	2030	Feb. 26, 2019
Southampton City Council	81%	Yes	2030	Sept. 18, 2019
Royal Borough of Greenwich	80%	Yes	2030	June 26, 2019
Portsmouth City Council	79%	No	2030	March 19, 2019
Coventry City Council	78%	No	No target	June 18, 2019
Luton Borough Council	77%	Yes	2040	Jan. 13, 2020
Bristol City Council	76%	Yes	2025	Nov. 13, 2018

These councils are the most similar to Greater London Authority in terms of the proportion of their population living in urban, rural, and highly rural neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council name	Similarity	Has plan	Carbon Neutral by	Declared emergency
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham	98%	No	2030	Jan. 30, 2020
London Borough of Redbridge	98%	Yes	2050	June 20, 2019
London Borough of Merton	98%	No	2030	July 10, 2019
London Borough of Ealing	98%	Yes	2030	April 2, 2019
Portsmouth City Council	97%	No	2030	March 19, 2019
Royal Borough of Greenwich	97%	Yes	2030	June 26, 2019
Southampton City Council	95%	Yes	2030	Sept. 18, 2019
London Borough of Harrow	95%	Yes	2030	July 18, 2019
Luton Borough Council	95%	Yes	2040	Jan. 13, 2020
London Borough of Hounslow	94%	Yes	2030	No

Features

This council’s climate plan has been tagged with the following features:

Powers & Responsibilities

The Greater London Authority has powers over:

Council buildings and staff

Climate actions might include:

making council offices more energy efficient
incentivising ‘Active Travel’ or public transport use among employees
providing carbon literacy training for employees

Planning and building control

Climate actions might include:

imposing reasonable requirements that new developments comply with energy efficiency standards and get a proportion of their energy from local, renewable sources (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
incorporating additional energy performance standards into their Local Plan, for new works that require planning permission
using Area Action Plans to guide development proposals towards lower carbon emissions or more cycling and walking routes, for example
enforcing legislation that requires private rental properties to be of Energy Efficiency Rating E or above (Energy Efficiency Regulations, 2015)
funding energy efficiency improvements on existing homes, through initiatives such as Green Homes Grants

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Spending, procuring, and investing

Climate actions might include:

embedding carbon impact assessment as part of the council’s budgeting and financial accountability process
utilising Public Works Loan Board loans or the Business Rates Retention Scheme to invest in emissions-reducing capital projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded
specifying low carbon equipment and practices when procuring for relevant services from suppliers
prioritising positive environmental impacts during procurement, through the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012

Transport planning

Climate actions might include:

incentivising ‘Active Travel’ like walking and cycling by creating or widening footways and cycleways
incentivising Electric Vehicle use by assigning street space to EV charging
disincentivising the use of fossil fuel cars through congestion charging,low-traffic neighbourhoods, or the reduction of parking space

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Read more about English local authority powers in the UK100 Power Shift report.

More about this council

london.gov.uk: Greater London Authority’s official homepage.
Tyndall Centre Carbon Budget report: Check Greater London Authority’s ‘carbon budget’ – their share towards meeting the UK’s Paris agreement targets.
Friends of the Earth ‘Near You’ tool: Discover climate groups in this area, data about Greater London Authority’s climate performance, and actions you can take.

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Cite this page

mySociety, Climate Emergency UK (2023). CAPE: Greater London Authority. Available at: http://cape.mysociety.org/councils/greater-london-authority/ [Accessed 26 Mar 2023].

	value
Emissions Type	Agriculture	Commercial	Domestic	Industry	Public Sector	Transport
Year
2005	51.45	12608.72	17030.86	3789.70	3951.22	10782.10
2006	52.91	13637.63	16955.93	3959.89	4090.77	10424.31
2007	49.83	13120.83	16514.97	3872.32	3879.91	10231.75
2008	50.58	13288.09	16669.94	3851.36	3938.51	9502.07
2009	45.59	11779.78	15168.68	3399.59	3523.09	9233.10
2010	48.56	12544.24	16323.73	3598.39	3776.19	9354.01
2011	43.88	11163.90	14321.68	3194.09	3337.22	9143.15
2012	48.28	12299.70	15408.27	3442.03	3673.65	9029.83
2013	46.74	11518.72	15086.50	3208.66	3524.26	8873.84
2014	40.26	9593.58	12682.53	2818.82	2975.44	8838.78
2015	37.78	8455.40	12235.94	2587.22	2714.46	8800.13
2016	35.28	7206.93	11679.41	2305.18	2472.14	8913.05
2017	32.22	6408.25	10773.04	2131.53	2327.65	8928.96
2018	32.64	6178.24	10558.89	2104.20	2307.65	8834.96
2019	30.19	5459.62	10165.98	1904.81	2107.63	8676.10
2020	27.62	4411.87	9982.76	1697.09	1940.01	7364.34

Greater London Authority

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

Climate pledges

Climate documents

Climate Plan Scorecard

Emissions data

Features

Powers & Responsibilities

More about this council

What do you want from Climate Action Plans?

Cite this page

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