“It’s going to make poor people poorer,” said Anna Austen, who says she relies on her 15-year-old diesel car to get to work and take her children to school.
Since then, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has asked for a review of Low Traffic Neighborhoods — often locally controversial zones where cars are banned from some residential streets — and slammed Labour as hostile to motorists. He has also approved new North Sea oil and gas drilling, sparking accusations the U.K. is backsliding on its climate commitments.Article content
The air in London, a city once nicknamed the Big Smoke, is getting cleaner¸ though the impact of the ULEZ is debated. A 2021 study by Imperial College London suggested the zone had a relatively small effect on air pollution in the 12 weeks after its central London launch.
At a recent demonstration, protesters chanted “Get Khan out,” and many placards attacked the city’s first Muslim mayor personally, sometimes in crude terms. Several protesters referred to Khan as a puppet of larger forces, including the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, that they alleged seek to control society. Some also expressed doubt about the extent of human-caused climate change.