Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London and longtime critic of Donald Trump, is imposing a crushing “ultra-low emissions zone” green tax on motorists, claiming air pollution claims the lives of thousands of Londoners annually — but an examination of English and Welsh death certificates over a period of two decades provides a confirmed body count of… one.
Khan’s ultra-low emissions zone, or ULEZ, hits vehicles which do not meet high emissions standards — mostly older vehicles, driven by people who cannot afford newer, lower-emissions vehicles London’s elites can acquire more easily — with charges of £12.50 (~$15.55) a day to drive in the capital.
Originally devised by the supposedly libertarian Boris Johnson when he was playing the part of the city’s rabidly anti-Trump mayor, Khan imposed the ULEZ on a relatively small part of the hyper-diverse city in 2019, but is now looking to massively expand it despite a cost of living crisis and rampant inflation.
The Spin.
The hugely unpopular policy, which “could hit disabled people, charities and small businesses the hardest”, according to the Street News-inspired Big Issue newspaper, was justified in January with reference to a study produced by Imperial College London — and funded by the Greater London Authority and Transport for London, both effectively creatures of Khan’s office — which alleged that “4,000 Londoners died due to the impacts of toxic air in 2019”.
In fact, the study was rather less black and white than this, with a note to editors far, far down in the press release on the study explaining that is actually “shows that the air pollution burden in London in 2019… is a loss of around 62,000 to 70,000 life years across the population” — and asserting that this is “equivalent” to “around 4,000 attributable deaths.”
Curiously, Imperial College London’s own press release does not actually say that Mayor Khan’s air pollution policies will cut deaths by 4,000, but merely “increase the average life expectancy of a child born in London in 2013 by six months” — a rather marginal benefit that will not be demonstrated (or not) until long after the Labour politician is dead, never mind holding office.
The Hard Data.
In any case, when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) was asked to disclose the number of deaths as a result of vehicle emissions and air pollution, respectively, under the Freedom of Information Act, they told a rather less definitive story than Imperial College.
“One death in England and Wales in the period 2001 to 2022 had exposure to air pollution… recorded on the death certificate,” the ONS confirmed.
The information was released begrudgingly, with the government statistician complaining that it is “unusual for wider contextual factors, such as exposure to pollution or air quality, to be recorded among the causes of death”, and that it may be “more informative” to consider studies publicized by the UK Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) on air pollution and mortality.
The government guidance linked to by the ONS cited “a modelling framework [which] estimated that a 1 µg/m3 reduction in fine particulate air pollution in England could prevent around 50,900 cases of coronary heart disease, 16,500 strokes, 9,300 cases of asthma and 4,200 lung cancers over an 18 year period.”
The “modelling framework” in question was, once again, developed by Imperial College with public money.
The Usual Suspects.
Imperial College’s models have had major, wide-ranging impacts on public policy before, most especially when they were used to justify the Boris Johnson government’s draconian pandemic lockdowns.
The man behind the models, Professor Neil Ferguson, had previously warned that bird fly could wipe out 200 million people worldwide, including 700,000 in Britain, in 2005 — yet his similarly dire coronavirus warnings were still taken seriously by the government.
Tellingly, however, ‘Professor Lockdown’ did not take his warnings especially seriously himself, being exposed by the press for conducting a lockdown-busting, cross-country affair with a married woman while pandemic panic was at its peak — and earning the new sobriquet ‘Professor Pantsdown’ into the bargain.
