Like the gilets jaunes, London's black-cab and Uber drivers rail against environmental policies

Countering climate change won't be pain-free. Driver protests are a taste of what lies ahead

That we need to take action on climate change is an inescapable fact of our times. But that doesn’t mean that countering climate change won’t make some people poorer and more miserable. In France – despite growing environmentalism – an eco-tax on fossil fuels set off the six-month-long gilets jaunes protest. In London, a new environmental policy is causing consternation among drivers-for-hire, some of whom believe that it may undercut their livelihoods.

From April 8, the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) will come into effect inside the north and south circular roads in London. Drivers with older, more polluting cars will have to pay a new ULEZ charge of £12.50 to drive in that area. Unlike previous legislation, the ULEZ will apply year-round, 24/7, rather than just during busy hours, and will be added on top of the current congestion charge, which is £11.50. For some drivers, that will mean paying £24 in order to drive their cars in central London, although there are some exemptions.

Environmental activists and legal experts have welcomed ULEZ as a first, overdue step in the right direction. “The way that our legislation works isn’t really good enough,” says Katie Nield, a clean air lawyer at Clientearth, an environmental law organisation. “Air pollution has risen up the political agenda – and the public psyche – even though the same stuff was happening five years ago.” Advocates of the new measures hope that they could set the standard for air pollution regulation in the UK, thus encouraging other cities and towns to take ambitious action to combat climate change.

In London, the air pollution conundrum is a key flashpoint in the forthcoming 2020 mayoral race (Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate, has said he will stop a proposed expansion of the ULEZ zone next year). Air pollution has become an area of increasing concern, as more research shows clear links between it and our health (over 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas where pollution is above the World Health Organisation’s safety guidelines). Even going for a walk can havemore of a detrimental impact on your health than simply staying inside. PM2.5 particulates emitted by the burning of fossil fuels – widely acknowledged to have damaging health effects – can be found in high concentrations across streets in central London, a fact Sadiq Khan has decried as a “public health emergency”. In cities, nitrogen oxide emitted by diesel cars, which has been linked to lung inflammation, remains illegally high. Khan hopes to counter all that through the ULEZ.

Transport for London’s (TfL) own impact analysis says that these changes will reduce road transport emissions by 20 per cent in 2019, just as a result of the ULEZ. Nitrogen oxide emissions are estimated to fall by the same percentage.

Preliminary impact consultations have suggested there will be a drop in the use of private vehicles after the law comes into effect. Buses and other kinds of public transport could get more crowded, as some workers will have to take another route in. Newer cars – such as electric or hybrid vehicles – will be exempt from the ULEZ charge, but they make up a small proportion of the overall percentage of cars that come into central London. TfL has a website where individuals can check if they fall foul of the new ULEZ rules: in order to be exempt, petrol cars have to meet Euro 4 emissions standards, and diesel cars have to meet Euro 6 emissions standards. What this means in practice is that older vehicles will have to be scrapped and replaced with newer, electric and hybrid models. Emergency service vehicles – such as fire engines and ambulances – are not exempt from these charges either.

In basic terms, the changes should mean there are fewer cars on the road, which means less traffic, and less pollution. In the long run, that should have a net positive effect on people’s health.

But it isn’t that cut and dry. For people whose livelihoods will be affected, the ULEZ is a major cause for concern. Private hire drivers, including Uber drivers, will have to start to pay the additional congestion charge of £12.50. Uber drivers often take home less than the minimum wage, and this new law could amount to up to £90 a week in charges (on top of the congestion charges), in an already precarious working environment.

These changes won’t happen gradually either: for a private hire driver, it’s as simple as having to pay an extra £12 per day from April 8, even if the rates that Uber charges, and the hours that they work, stay the same. “You can’t leave people freewheeling at the side of a policy,” says David Powell, the head of environment and green transition at the New Economics Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. “Everyone wants to save the planet, but if their job is the one that’s being taken away, then they will fight it and we won’t get there at all.”

Since the policy was announced, London’s private hire drivers have been protesting against it, first at London Bridge and then at Westminster, by creating blockades around TfL’s offices and the Houses of Parliament. They recently started to crowdfund for a discrimination lawsuit against Khan and TfL, alleging that the imposition of the congestion charge on a predominantly black and minority ethnic working class workforce was unfair.

In December, The Guardian revealed that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi lobbied for these congestion charges, despite being aware that they would hit Uber drivers the hardest. “It’s more than just an extra 60 quid a week,” says Roman (not his real name), a driver who has been working for Uber for a few months. “We’re going to be forced into working different hours, and not taking home enough – some people are going to pack it in.”

This could also cause other, unexpected changes: while a great deal of private hire drivers work in central London during the day, surge prices and London’s vibrant nightlife mean that a great number of drivers could start to work more hours at night to avoid the congestion charge, which only applies at peak hours. As the ULEZ charge comes in, this could result in more drivers shifting their working hours – so that they only have to pay the ULEZ charge, and not the congestion charge – to work throughout the night. “We rely on surges,” says Nick, an Uber driver that works mostly at night. “If there is an oversupply, then that’s not good for us. But it’s also not good for a lot of the drivers, who aren’t used to driving at night, so that could become a safety problem.”

When the ULEZ charge was announced, Uber said that it would be increasing the per-mile rate by 15p, essentially forcing customers to pay extra to help drivers buy a clean vehicle. An Uber spokesperson confirmed that the company would be funnelling this money into an electric vehicle fund for its drivers, though did not clarify or explain how this decision was made, how many drivers were consulted, and how drivers would be able to access this fund to upgrade to an EV.

But the rule that applies to Uber drivers does not apply to London’s black cabs, which are exempt from the ULEZ charge despite being responsible for at least 18 per cent of the nitrogen oxide released in central London. Khan’s strategy is to encourage black cabs to transition to hybrid and electric vehicles simply by not approving any more petrol or diesel taxis. One would expect black-cab drivers to welcome this exemption with jubilation. But they have also been protesting, since December, against the mayor, lamenting what they see as an attack on their livelihoods, disguised as environmental action.

The taxi drivers have taken umbrage with a rise in road closures in central London – such as Tottenham Court Road, which only buses, cyclists and pedestrians can use during the week, from 08:00 until 19:00. These measures are often put in place to ease congestion and reduce air pollution. Taxi drivers have taken to Twitter and closed Facebook groups to organise their protests and discuss updates, such as recent plans to pedestrianise a street in Clerkenwell. A common feature on black-cab Twitter accounts are videos of bus exhaust pipes pumping out pollution.

Black-cab drivers see these new measures – and rules on the kinds of car that they can drive – as a part of a TfL-led vendetta against them. Some drivers bring up the fact that TfL is running its buses at a loss because of falling numbers of passengers, and suggest that it is trying to reduce the supply of taxis to force paying passengers back onto buses.

The issue cab drivers have with new legislation can often be ascribed to policy changes which were brought in years ago – for example, when cab drivers went from being regulated by the Metropolitan Police to being regulated by TfL, the decision to implement cycling lanes, and the fact that there is still no cap on the number of private hire vehicles allowed on London’s roads. “Our problem isn’t with Uber, really, in this case,” says Sean. “It’s with TfL, and that’s what this protest has been about – impacting the buses, costing them money.”

“It’s about freedom of choice – it’s about doing The Knowledge. So we enter into a covenant with TfL,” says Saul (not his real name) who has been involved the protests since December when taxis were barred from entering Tooley Street near London Bridge. “We have had different rights, and now they’re trying to move the goalposts.”

Black-cab drivers say that TfL has ignored their calls for consultations, and that the age limit of the cabs which they’re allowed to drive – and have often invested significant money into – is being lowered without notice. They also say that they haven’t been given much support to switch to electric vehicles, although TfL has announced a £42 million fund to give drivers the incentive to make the switch. Cabbies argue that this still puts an economic burden on them, and that the details about how to apply for the switch aren’t accessible or clear.

“Look, we care about the environment, we care about the cyclists, and we want a safe and healthy environment to work in,” says Saul. “Instead of asking people who are making decisions based on a model, they [the policy makers] should come and speak to us. We’ll tell you where the pinch points are, and what you can do to improve it. You have to speak to people who actually work at the source.” Black-cab drivers argue that restricting their ability to drive around central London will significantly affect their ability to earn a living. Some say they will end up having to take on other jobs.

“We sit at the level of diesel, you know – if that many people are dying, 40,000 a year, we’d be the most affected, and we wouldn’t be driving for hire, we’d be going to funerals,” says Derick (not his real name), a black-cab driver who has also been protesting the changes since December.

Many feel let down by Khan, who, as a mayoral candidate in 2016, had promised a “renaissance” of the black cab trade. “It’s been an incredible betrayal,” says Derick. “He’s gone the other way, and he’s not listening.”

In January 2018, TfL upcated its licensing requirements for all new black cabs, stipulating that they could have CO2 emissions of no more than 50g/km and a minimum 30 mile zero emission range. Existing taxis, even diesel cabs which were bought in 2017, will be able to run for the typical period of 15 years without having to pay the ULEZ charge. Khan is also introducing two scrappage schemes to help small businesses, such as those that rely on vans, move over to hybrid and electric vehicles.

But that fails to address the central concern of the taxi drivers, and the private hire drivers. If taxi drivers aren’t able to get into parts of central London, it could disincentive them to move to an electric vehicle at all, as they will be earning less (central London is the busiest area for black-cab drivers). It may also create crunch points around certain junctions – such as just outside Tottenham Court Road – and it could negatively impact traffic in other areas.

These issues of balancing long-term environmental policies with short-term concerns are not new, but they are taking on a new fervour. “London has got a history of trying to deal with this issue, way back to when the first mayor came in [Ken Livingstone in 2000]. But what we also see is that pollution is rising in London,” says Frank Kelly, who leads the environmental research group at King’s College London. “At the moment, [there] is a mayor who is much more ambitious in terms of trying to solve the problem.”

“When the congestion charge was introduced in 2003, there was significant public opposition to it,” says Kelly. “But within the first year of it being operational, there was a change in the public’s opinion, because there were fewer congested roads in the city, so it was just a more pleasant place to be.” But broadly speaking, the general public isn’t taking issue with the ULEZ.

“Black cabs were seen as a necessary component of the vehicle fleet,” says Kelly. “The congestion charge wasn’t even brought in to improve air quality, but really to decrease the congestion in the city. We saw 70,000 fewer vehicles coming into the city.” That number spiked after the introduction of Uber in 2012. The argument may be that private hire vehicles end up going the same way, either by design or inevitably as a result of the increasing costs.

“The funding which was raised by that scheme – a lot of that was actually used to expand the bus network in London,” says Kelly. “Of course, all those buses were diesel, so it might not have impacted air quality positively, but in this instance, I do think we’ll see an increase in cycling, potentially more people going back to the buses and the Tube.” TfL’s calculation of the impact of ULEZ on vehicles indicates that there will be a noticeable effect. “They anticipate a decrease in the early days, and there’s going to be 20 per cent of the vehicles which are coming into central London which aren’t compliant,” says Kelly. But the point isn’t necessarily to fine the vehicles and let them continue on their merry way – arguably, the point is to keep vehicles out altogether.

Even as the date of the ULEZ draws closer, protests against it remain limited to the drivers who will be affected most by the changes. As a result, gilets jaunes-style reckoning with the intricacies and inconsistencies of English politics seems very far away (potentially because this is only happening in London, not around the country). “Perhaps as we get closer to April 8, there will be a lot more opposition to the ULEZ,” says Kelly. “But we’re in a better position, because now we’ve got the data to defend it.”

This article was originally published by WIRED UK