- COP29 fight looms over climate funds for developing world
- Shanghai stocks soar to extend stimulus rally amid Asia-wide drop
- Will Tesla's robotaxi reveal live up to hype?
- 'Invisibility' and quantum computing tipped for physics Nobel
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street falls
- 'Dark day': Victims mourned around the globe on Oct. 7 anniversary
- Mission to probe smashed asteroid launches despite hurricane
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street slips
- Europe's asteroid mission Hera launches despite hurricane
- Oil prices extend gains on Mideast tensions, Wall Street retreats
- What is microRNA? Nobel-winning discovery explained
- Weather may delay launch of mission to study deflected asteroid
- China to flesh out economic stimulus plans after bumper rally
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on US jobs data
- World marks anniversary of Oct. 7 attack on Israel
- Asian markets track Wall St rally on jobs data
- Cancer, cardiovascular drugs tipped for Nobel as prize week opens
- Tunisia incumbent Saied set to win presidential vote: exit polls
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Oil extends gains, jobs report lifts Wall Street
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
- Top EU court finds against FIFA in key transfer market ruling
- Oil extends gains, Hong Kong stocks resume rally
- 'A man provides': Ukrainian miners send families away as Russia advances
- EU states greenlight extra tariffs on EVs from China
- Hong Kong stocks resume rally, oil dips after Middle East-fuelled surge
- Crude stable after Israel-Iran surge, Hong Kong stocks resume gains
- Hera spacecraft to probe asteroid deflected by defence test
- US dockworkers to head back to work after tentative deal
- After Helene's destruction, North Carolina starts to rebuild
- Dockers end three-day strike at Montreal port
- What next for OpenAI after $157 billion bonanza?
- Israel-Hamas war causes 86-percent dive in Gaza GDP: IMF
- Milan's Morata moves house after Inter-fan town mayor 'violates' privacy
- 'Devastating' storm hits Augusta National but Masters will go on
RBGPF | -1.97% | 58.94 | $ | |
BCC | 1.68% | 141.27 | $ | |
JRI | -0.76% | 13.18 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.09% | 24.79 | $ | |
CMSC | -0.53% | 24.57 | $ | |
GSK | -0.49% | 38.63 | $ | |
AZN | -0.78% | 76.87 | $ | |
SCS | -0.15% | 12.95 | $ | |
RELX | -0.54% | 46.04 | $ | |
RIO | -0.11% | 69.62 | $ | |
NGG | -1.56% | 65.48 | $ | |
RYCEF | -1.45% | 6.88 | $ | |
BCE | -0.54% | 33.53 | $ | |
BTI | -0.26% | 35.2 | $ | |
VOD | 0.31% | 9.69 | $ | |
BP | 0.78% | 33.14 | $ |
Vehicle pollution zone to cover all of London
Heavily polluting vehicles will have to pay to enter the entire metropolitan area of London from next year, the British capital's mayor said Friday.
Sadiq Khan said the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) would be expanded from August 29 beyond its current confines, to take in the entire nine million people of Greater London.
Announcing a parallel expansion of bus services in outer London, he argued that air pollution from older vehicles was making Londoners "sick from cradle to the grave".
The ULEZ had already proven "transformational", the mayor said, and its extension would mean "five million more people will be able to breathe cleaner air and live healthier lives".
The zone has already been expanded once since it was introduced in April 2019, and today covers a large area within London's North and South Circular inner ring-roads and the city centre.
Unless their vehicles are exempt, drivers entering the zone have to pay a daily charge of £12.50 ($15).
Petrol cars first registered after 2005, and diesel cars after September 2015, typically meet the ULEZ standards for nitrous oxide emissions and are exempt.
Air pollution caused around 1,000 annual hospital admissions for asthma and serious lung conditions in London between 2014 and 2016, according to a 2019 report.
A coroner ruled in 2020 that air pollution made a "material contribution" to the death of a nine-year-old London girl in 2013 -- the first time in Britain that air pollution was officially listed as a cause of death.
Air pollution is "affecting children before they're even born, and giving them lifelong health issues", the campaign group Mums for Lungs tweeted.
"Good news for the health of all Londoners," it said in response to the ULEZ announcement.
Billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg, a UN climate envoy and former mayor of New York, said Khan was "helping to clean London's air and set an example for cities around the world".
But opponents of the ULEZ argue it amounts to a "tax" on poorer drivers least able to afford to replace their polluting vehicles, and has hurt small businesses.
The announcement will be "a hammer-blow for desperate drivers and businesses already struggling with crippling fuel costs" during a cost-of-living crisis, said the head of roads policy for motoring body the RAC, Nicholas Lyes.
All cars and vans entering central London during the day time also have to pay a "congestion charge" of £15, a measure first introduced in 2003.
Similar schemes have been set up in several other British towns and cities to reduce emission levels and improve air quality,
H.Cho--CPN