London's Mayor Sadiq Khan Played the Long Game on Climate. And It Worked
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has successfully navigated climate policy challenges during his decade in office. Despite significant backlash, particularly regarding the expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), Khan's approach has shown that climate initiatives can be popular when framed as health and economic issues. His re-election with a larger share of the vote underscores the potential for climate policies to resonate with the public when they address everyday concerns.
- ▪Khan's climate policies faced backlash from right-leaning politicians and the public, especially regarding the ULEZ expansion.
- ▪Polls indicated that the ULEZ issue ranked ninth among voter priorities, contradicting perceptions of widespread opposition.
- ▪Khan framed climate initiatives as health matters to connect with constituents' everyday concerns about air pollution and rising living costs.
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Around the world, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, countries are in the middle of a climate reset. Right-wing politicians want to nix climate policy full stop. Their left and center-left counterparts are backtracking on promises for aggressive new policies under the assumption that climate is no longer popular—or perhaps that it never was.Sadiq Khan, the London mayor who completed a decade in office last month, says his tenure offers a different lesson. His climate policy push has generated moments of significant blow back from right-leaning politicians and outspoken members of the public, leading political observers to cast green policies as all-but-inevitable instigators of climate backlash. And yet Khan survived and his policies did too.
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