Picture: C40 Cities
The workplace of Sadiq Khan (pictured), who not too long ago received a 3rd time period as Mayor, is but to decide on a successor. Whoever is chosen will play a key function within the supply of the capital’s bold 2030 net-zero carbon goal.
Rodrigues had spearheaded the Better London Authority’s setting and power programmes since late 2016. The previous eight years have seen a big ramping up within the Authority’s work on this area.
Rodrigues has contributed to the design and supply of London’s overarching Inexperienced New Deal – its pandemic restoration plan which features a 2030 net-zero goal for operational emissions and a imaginative and prescient to double the scale of the capital’s inexperienced financial system inside the similar timeframe.
She has additionally been a key determine within the implementation of London’s Extremely-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), designed to encourage fleet operators and particular person motorists to change from extra polluting autos to lower-emission modes of transport. ULEZ first launched in 2019 for central London and was subsequently expanded to everything of Better London in August 2023.
The growth has confirmed controversial. The Better London Authority has maintained that it’s obligatory to chop air air pollution however motorists in a number of outer London boroughs have protested being burdened with additional prices through the cost-of-living disaster. Khan’s rival for the current Mayoral race, Conservative candidate Susan Corridor, had pledged to reverse the ULEZ growth as a precedence.
All in all, Rodrigues has labored for greater than 20 years within the area of inexperienced financial system insurance policies and methods, with a give attention to city areas and native councils. In addition to her current tenure at Metropolis Corridor, she was additionally the Better London Authority’s head of setting and local weather change underneath Ken Livingstone within the early 2000s.
Khan mentioned he was “extremely grateful” for Rodrigues’s “world-leading” work.
ReLondon’s chief government Wayne Hubbard penned a heartfelt tribute to Rodrigues on LinkedIn. He wrote: “I can unequivocally say that Shirley is one of the most effective and passionate advocates for environment and climate that it has been my good fortune to work with in all that time. The legacy that she will leave is clear for all to see.”
Rodrigues will proceed to serve on the board of the worldwide C40 Cities community, which convenes native leaders from world wide on sustainability.
Different Deputy Mayors who play an important function in greening London’s financial system are remaining of their posts, together with transport lead Seb Dance and enterprise and development lead Howard Dawber.
