InfoIslington - Islington Reference Library

The Mayor's Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Annual Report 2013-14

The Mayor’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Annual Report updates on Mayoral activity in 2013-14 to reduce London’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and secure its energy supply. It also provides analysis and commentary on levels of CO₂ emissions in London in 2013.

Progress in 2013-14 was promising. Despite an ever-increasing population and one of the coldest winters in recent history, which increased London’s gas use, interim figures show London’s emissions have fallen by 11 percent on their 1990 baseline, and 20 percent since their peak in 2000. Per capita emissions fell by 28 percent on 1990 levels to 4.8 tonnes of CO₂ in 2013.

Mayoral programmes have continued to deliver CO₂ emission reductions in London, as well as securing the capital’s energy supply:

• The Mayor’s Decentralised Energy Project Delivery Unit and the Mayor’s work on new development secured commitments to invest nearly £103 million in decentralised energy in London in 2013 alone.
• By the end of 2013-14, over 100,000 homes were visited through the Mayor’s retrofit programmes. Coupled with wider market delivery, 500,000 homes have been retrofitted across the capital, resulting in a reduction in Londoners’ energy bills of over £4.7 million per annum.
• The Mayor’s RE:FIT programme retrofitted over 400 public sector buildings,and has an active pipeline of buildings for the future, including London’s schools.

Focus on Fuel Poverty

Fuel poverty is currently defined as the condition in which a household is required to spend more than 10% of their income on maintaining an adequate level of warmth in their home and on power. Adequate warmth is defined by the World Health Organisation as 21°C in living rooms and 18°C in other rooms. The Mayor of London, taking into account the high cost of accommodation in London, has adopted an enhanced definition which calculates 10% of income after housing costs and this is the definition that Islington adheres to.

Islington Evidence Hub produced a factsheet in October 2013 on fuel poverty in Islington. It shows that 53% of single pensioners in private sector housing in Islington are fuel poor and 31% of private tenants are fuel poor.

 

The Mayor’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Annual Report 2014

The Mayor’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Annual Report provides an update on activity undertaken in the 2011-13 financial years to reduce London’s CO2 emissions and secure its energy supply. It also provides analysis and commentary on levels of CO2 emissions in London in 2011.

The Mayor has a target to reduce London’s CO2 emissions by 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2025.  This Annual Report updates on programmes outlined in the strategy, including the Decentralised Energy Programme Delivery Unit, RE:FIT, RE:NEW and the Mayor’s Low Carbon Entrepreneur, as well as initiatives delivered by London’s wider market.

London’s CO2 emissions have fallen by eleven percent since 1990, 21 percent since their peak in 2000, and 14 percent since 20081. This is even more impressive in light of the rapid increase in London’s population. Original population forecasts for London were seriously off-target. London is growing at the fastest rate in its history, with an increase of around 600,000 since 2008. This has meant that CO2 emissions per capita have reduced by nearly 30 percent from 1990 levels and by 19 percent since 2008. This means London continues to produce by far the lowest per capita emissions of any region in the UK at 4.89 tCO2 per annum, compared to the national average of 6.9 tCO2 per annum2. As London is also the wealthiest region, it shows how we can decouple CO2 emissions from economic and population growth, and shows how cities can lead the way in reducing CO2 emissions.

2013 Energy Planning Monitoring Report for London

This report was published in June 2014 by the Greater London Authority. Key Highlights:

This document sets out the outcomes secured in 2013 as a result of implementation of the London Plan energy policies (specifically Policy 5.2) through the planning system:

Implementation of the energy hierarchy in 2013 resulted in regulated CO2 emission reductions of 36 per cent more than required by Part L 2010 of the Building Regulations

Commitment to the provision of CHP plant able to produce 25MW of electricity and a similar amount of heat, equivalent to 16 per cent of the CHP electrical capacity installed in London in 2012

Significant investment secured at each stage of the energy hierarchy including:

Be Lean - Investment in energy demand reduction measures resulting in a 9 per cent reduction in CO2  emissions compared to Part L 2010 through energy efficiency measures alone

Be Clean - £120 million in heat network infrastructure and associated CHP capacity, supporting the strategic move to decentralised energy networks

Be Green - £13 million in photovoltaic panels and additional investment in other renewable energy technologies

 

London Energy and Greenhouse Gas Inventory

The London Energy and Greenhouse Gas Inventory (LEGGI) published in August 2013 with 2011 data shows greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption broken down in part by borough.

LEGGI shows estimates of energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Homes, Workplaces and Transport within the Greater London area. It is produced by the Greater London Authority. LEGGI uses sub-regional energy (electricity, gas and other fuels) and CO2 data published by DECC for Homes and Workplaces, and data from the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) for energy and CO2 data for Transport.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions – Total emissions in London in 2011 were 40,200 Kilotonnes of Carbon Dioxide, down by 16% on 2008.

Promoting Zero Carbon Development Phase 2

This report from 2010 was commissioned by LB of Islington from AECOM and Davis Langdon to investigate the feasibility of developing policies for a carbon reduction policy for minor developments. It contains much useful information.

Energy Strategy 2013-2016

The Energy Strategy adopted by the Executive Committee on 7 February 2013 has a five point plan:

Making fuel cheaper so that people can afford to stay warm

Providing Green jobs for local people through the development of a green economy

Keeping residents warmer by developing improving the fuel efficiency and better insulating Islington housing stock

Homes people can afford by ensuring that new housing is genuinely affordable in terms of its energy efficiency rating and cost of heating

Providing an alternative to private energy companies through Islington owned power stations and brokering better fuel prices for our residents.

CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme was introduced by government in 2008. Organisations that meet the qualification criteria, based on how much electricity they consumed in 2008, are obliged to participate in the CRC.

As well as reducing carbon emissions, the scheme will help organisations save money by reducing their energy bills. The better an organisation performs in terms of cutting its emissions, the higher it will appear in the annual performance league table.

In the latest published table for 2011/12 Islington was ranked 1301 with emissions of  23017 tonnes of CO2.

 

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Within the Scope of Loal Authorities

This dataset from the Department of Energy and Clinmate Change  measures end-user carbon dioxide emissions in the local area from the industrial, domestic and transport sector. It relies on a draw-down of information from the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas emissions and covers the years 2005-2010.

Fuel Poverty in London

In From The Cold, a report from the Health and Public Services Committee of the London Assembly, makes a series of recommendations that could help improve the situation for the nearly one in five London households who struggle to heat their homes and pay their energy bills.

Unless action is taken to tackle the problem, long-term energy price rises will continue to push more people into fuel poverty: the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) own projections show a worst case scenario that almost a quarter of households will be in fuel poverty by next year.