There’s a Whiff of Rebellion in London’s Air

London will start nudging the most-polluting vehicles off the entirety of its roads on Tuesday. They aren’t going quietly.

The expansion of the capital’s ultra-low emission zone to cover the whole of Greater London has sparked an insurgent campaign of civil disobedience, with hundreds of the roadside cameras that will be used to identify offending vehicles damaged, stolen or otherwise disabled. One video featured in British media shows a hooded man using a tree lopper — a pair of clippers with an extendable arm — to cut the cables on cameras. Others have been covered with stickers.

The ULEZ policy imposes a £12.50 ($15.70) daily surcharge on anyone driving a non-compliant car in the zone. That broadly means gasoline-powered cars manufactured before 2006 and diesel cars and vans made before September 2016. The current ULEZ covers the 236 square miles (611 square kilometers) bounded by the North and South Circular roads that orbit inner London. That will more than double to about 600 square miles under the Aug. 29 enlargement that extends the zone to all 32 of the capital’s boroughs. More than 90% of cars driving in outer London are already ULEZ-compliant, according to the city’s transport authority.

The public health case for policies like ULEZ — used around the world — is well established, even if it can be tricky to separate their precise benefits from other measures designed to reduce air pollution. The doubt in this proposal lies in the politics and timing. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who implemented the first ULEZ in 2019 and has championed its expansion, has refused to delay or dilute a policy that he says will save lives and help tackle the climate emergency. In doing so, he is widening cultural fault lines and unleashing passions that can do serious political damage. It looks like a risky gamble.

Certainly, Khan’s party seems to think so. The opposition Labour Party blamed the ULEZ expansion for its loss in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election last month to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who, as London’s mayor, first proposed the ULEZ plan). It was a contest that Labour expected to win. Party leader Keir Starmer urged Khan to “reflect” on the decision, and Labour subsequently dropped a policy commitment to support clean-air zones in cities across the country.

Khan has data on his side. Look at the polls, and the ULEZ policy is popular. A survey last month by Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed 58% of Londoners support the zones, and a plurality of 47% favor the expansion (though in answer to a differently phrased question, the highest number of respondents, 37%, said they supported keeping ULEZ at its current boundaries).

Most believe the zone has improved London’s air quality. Concentrations of nitrogen dioxide are estimated to be 21% lower in inner London and 46% lower in central London than they would have been without ULEZ, the mayor’s office said in a February report. Overall levels of nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 — the most harmful particulate matter, or those that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter — have fallen more than 40% across central and inner London since 2017. Since newer vehicles are less polluting, these declines partly reflect the passage of time.

The poll numbers merit cautious interpretation. It’s easy to support a motherhood-and-apple-pie issue like air quality when it costs you nothing, which is the case for the vast majority of Londoners who already drive ULEZ-compliant cars. On the other side, those hurt are likely to feel the injustice deeply — to the extent of taking matters into their own hands. Motorists can be an aggressive bunch when their freedom of movement is threatened: Recall those drivers seen confronting and attacking Just Stop Oil protesters. Khan has inflamed the anger of “white-van man,” a colloquial term for the stereotypical working-class British tradesperson.

For Labour, historically the party of social justice and the disadvantaged, the optics are unfortunate. The burden of the ULEZ expansion falls most heavily on those who can least afford it — people who drive older, cheaper cars and live in less accessible neighborhoods. The surcharges are aimed at getting non-compliant vehicles off the road: That’s easier in inner London, where public transport networks are more developed. For those traveling longer distances into or across outer London, the disruption may be severe.

The mayor has said it was a “difficult” decision and has announced substantial subsidy programs, offering a £2,000 grant for every non-compliant car and at least £5,000 for every van that is scrapped. That hasn’t stopped the ruling Conservative Party from attacking its rival on the issue, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak taking the opportunity to present himself as the friend of motorists.

All this, amid a cost of living crisis, for improvements that are at best incremental, in a city where the air quality is already, relatively speaking, quite good. London ranks 3,457th on a list of the most polluted global cities by PM2.5 concentrations last year — better than New York, Paris, Hong Kong or Singapore. A May 2022 report by US consultant Jacobs said the ULEZ expansion would have a “minor to negligible” effect on exposure to air pollution.

Khan, facing re-election next year, has adopted the stance of the principled conviction politician who ignores short-term vicissitudes to push for the long-term good. Margaret Thatcher, the lady who was not for turning, was also a conviction politician. Her premiership was fatally undermined by the 1990 poll tax riots, which led to her ouster and the levy’s subsequent withdrawal. Sometimes discretion can be the better part of valor.