Isramart : Boris Johnson tells climate summit to take off its carbon neutral hairshirt and cheer up

Isramart news:
The London Mayor Boris Johnson said today that people should stop "overdosing on gloom" as they try to reduce their carbon footprint.

Mr Johnson was speaking at "summit" of Mayors which opened today in Copenhagen city hall to run alongside the UN climate summit. There delegates from 192 nations hope to set limits on global carbon dioxide emissions over coming decades for signature by 120 world leaders this Friday.

Some 80 mayors are participating in the meeting including Michael Bloomberg of New York and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, who is trying to transfor his city from America's most polluted to its greenest.

None could match Mr Johnson on the humour front, however, as he disagreed with a suggestion that the mayors could learn from each other and suggested that they they inject a note of competition. "You have to harness the appalling ego of politicians," he said.
In a question-and-answer session, the mayors were asked to showcase their city's green credentials. London could not compete with cities such as Toronto, where authorities have already cut their carbon emissions by 40 per cent, or Copenhagen, which is on track to become the world's first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.

Mr Johnson said that London intended to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent on 1990 levels by 2025 — far beyond the targets being discussed at the UN summit. He said that the secret, apart from a new generation of green Routemaster buses, was to appeal to people's "naked self-interest" in offering incentives for schemes such as home insulation. He also called on City banks to help securitise debt taken on by London in its battle to reduce emissions.

He added: "We need to stop overdosing on gloom and start conveying a message of optimism to people they can improve their lives and cut their CO2. There's too much mortification of the flesh and hairshirt-ism, too much gloom, too much negativity."

Mr Johnson warned that the public was turned off by the gloom, but said measures to improve energy efficiency in homes could save people money and cut their heating bills in homes while an electric vehicle network would mean they do not have to "buy a lagoon of petrol or diesel over the lifetime of their car".

"We're never going to beat consumerism, we need to harness it, we need a new green consumerism," he said.

As part of the meeting of mayors, Mr Johnson announced that every Londoner would be no more than one mile from an electric charge point by 2015 as part of a comprehensive network of charge points in the capital.

He hopes that electric cars will become a feature of life in the capital and wants to team up with other cities to ensure their joint purchasing power to ensure a supply of vehicles at the best possible price.

Under the charging point scheme, there will be 22,500 charge points at workplaces, with 500 on street and 2,000 in public car parks by 2015, and faster charge points installed at key locations on the roads and at motorway service stations. Altogether Mr Johnson wants to put 100,000 electric vehicles on the streets of London.

Mr Johnson added: 'A golden era of clean, green electric motoring is upon us and London is well ahead of cities around the globe in preparing the right conditions for this."

Also participating in the mayor's meeting is Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California who unilaterally took that state down the carbon-reduction route. In a speech delivered at the main summit today, Mr Schwarzenegger said that governments alone could not make the progress needed on climate change: "They need the cities, the states, the provinces, the regions. They need the corporations, the activists, the scientists, the universities."