• Six years remaining to meet low carbon bus targets set by mayoral authorities
• Mayoral authorities in danger of missing targets
• Almost 30,000 buses across the UK still run on diesel

Most Mayoral Authorities in England have set ambitious targets for decarbonising their bus fleets by 2040 or sooner, but with just six years to go until the earliest 2030 target date set by three authorities, fulfilment is looking unlikely.

New research from Climate Emergency UK found that English Mayoral Authorities need to more than double their current rate of transitioning to zero emission buses if they are going to reach their own 2030 or 2040 targets. 

Clean buses are an integral part of improving public transport, thereby cutting emissions and improving air quality. Boris Johnson, himself a former London Mayor, famously backed a ‘green bus revolution‘ that would see diesel buses become a thing of the past.

But across 9 English Mayoral Authorities in existence (not including London and the newly created York and North Yorkshire and East Midlands County Combined Authority), just 7% of buses in use are zero emission, despite each of these 9 authorities, except Tees Valley, having a target for a zero emission bus fleet by 2040 or sooner. 

Two authorities, Tees Valley and South Yorkshire, have no zero emission buses at all. The Greater London Authority has the highest number of zero emission buses, at 14.44% of its total fleet, with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough coming second at 12.65%. Although they are leading the way compared to other regions, London and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have a target of 2034 and 2030 for all their buses to be zero emissions, which, at the current rate of decarbonisation they are unlikely to meet. 

Climate Emergency UK (CE UK) used information in their Council Climate Action Scorecards and Freedom of Information requests sent to Mayoral Authorities in February 2024 to uncover data for each  region, and compared this against the authorities’ own targets.  

Annie Pickering, Operations Director at Climate Emergency UK, said, “With less than 6 years left, English Mayors need to double down their efforts to decarbonise their bus fleet by 2030. They can use their collective power to lobby the national government for further support and secure investment to finance further bus fleet decarbonisation at the scale and pace that is needed when we are facing a climate emergency.” 

Across England, only 4% of buses are zero emission. Last month the Department of Transport released funding for almost 1,000 new electric buses across England, but this falls below what is needed to convert all of the remaining 28,948 diesel buses across England. 

Fran Postlethwaite, Better Buses Campaign Coordinator added “Buses are the backbone of our communities and electric buses are the future. Progress on electric buses hasn’t been fast enough, we need the newly elected Mayors to use their influence to lobby for the funding and support needed to decarbonise. To help them do this the UK government must increase the money available to decarbonise our bus fleets and end the competitive funding process so all local areas can benefit from electric buses.”

With 30% of progress towards net zero is within the scope of influence of local authorities, according to 6th UK Carbon Budget, Climate Emergency UK assessed all UK councils on their climate action, publishing the Council Climate Action Scorecards in October 2023. 

Contact press@climateemergency.uk or Annie at Climate Emergency UK on 07934486877 for more information