Sadiq finally admits he won’t hit his flagship 2030 net zero pledge for London

Sir Sadiq Khan has finally been forced to admit defeat on his flagship pledge to make London net zero by 2030 — and is now demanding ministers hand him more powers to bail him out of his own failure.

The Labour mayor of London grudgingly conceded that the capital will fall short of the headline-grabbing climate promise he made six years ago, despite the introduction of a Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and ploughing millions into electrifying London’s bus fleet.

In a humiliating climbdown at City Hall last Thursday, Sir Sadiq blamed his failure on the fact that he does not have direct control over the energy grid — and used the admission to demand fresh devolution of powers from the Government.

“By 2030, we will have made lots of progress — we won’t get to, on current trajectory, Net Zero in London,” the Mayor was forced to admit during Mayor’s Question Time on 21 May.

“What I’d like is more devolution.”

The grovelling confession is a major blow for Sir Sadiq, who first trumpeted the 2030 pledge six years ago while campaigning for his second term in office. The wildly ambitious target was a full two decades ahead of both the current and previous governments, which have set the more realistic date of 2050.

The Mayor was put on the spot by Green party leader and London Assembly Member Zack Polanski, who branded City Hall’s climate policies as “siloed” — with individual schemes failing to add up to a coherent whole.

A chastened Sir Sadiq admitted “his criticism is a fair one” before pivoting to blame the government for not giving him enough cash and control.

“The funding comes from different pots of money, it’s frustrating,” he moaned. “If we had an integrated settlement, monies devolved to London in one pot, we could have some joined-upness.”

Under last year’s Spending Review, London was finally handed its first ever Integrated Settlement, running from 2026 to 2029. But the money comes with strings attached — tied to hitting specific targets — and crucially does not hand the Mayor powers over the city’s energy grid.

Sir Sadiq insisted bodies under his control — including Transport for London and the London Fire Brigade — were on track to hit net zero, calling it “a big achievement considering where we started”.

But he conceded the wider capital was a different story, pointing the finger squarely at the fossil-fuel-reliant energy grid.

“The grid has got to change — a lot of the problems we are having are because the grid relies on fossil fuels,” he said. “If we can change that, the opportunities are huge.

“We’ve also got to retrofit buildings — we can’t give people renewables and cheaper bills but then let it all out again.”

Polanski rounded on the mayor afterwards, telling the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We need to be honest about the scale of the challenge London still faces from the climate crisis. The mayor is right to say London isn’t on course for net zero by 2030, we should be targeting more effort at that now. And this should be non-negotiable. Climate science doesn’t care about politics.”

He added: “There are so many other benefits London could have from the investment we need — cheaper energy, cooler homes and better transport. The Government should be supporting cities to get on and invest in tackling climate change.”

Pressed on what Londoners could realistically expect over the next year, Sir Sadiq said he would give residents the “tools” to bring down their bills and continue with a mass retrofitting programme across the capital.

The ministry for housing, communities and local government has been contacted for comment.