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Sadiq Khan has flown nearly 28,000 miles around the world in just one year after pushing Londoners to reduce their own emissions, it has been revealed.
The Labour mayor has jetted off to Poland, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, France twice and Brazil over the last 12 months, racking up thousands of air miles and costing the tax payer tens of thousands of pounds in travel costs.
He came under fire for his 12,000-mile round trip to Rio de Janeiro this week for a climate change conference.
Accompanied by City Hall aides, he is attending the C40 summit, billed as the ‘biggest ever gathering of mayors’ focused on tackling global warming.
Conservative London Assembly member Neil Garratt mocked Khan’s latest trip, saying the mayor appeared to be ‘tackling climate change one business class long-haul flight at a time’.
The criticism came just hours after a City Hall report warned London was set to miss its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2030.
It has also been revealed that Khan’s trip to Africa in July cost the taxpayer £84,000, with more than £68,000 spent on flights and £11,000 on accommodation.
The four-day trip, which saw the Mayor and 11 colleagues fly between Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa, had significant portions of the journey travelled in business class and premium economy, according to an FOI request.
The distance travelled meant the Mayor racked up almost 260 tonnes of carbon emissions, more than 22 times the average accrued by a UK family over an entire year.
Accompanied by City Hall aides he is attending the C40 summit, billed as the ‘biggest ever gathering of mayors’ focused on tackling global warming
He went back to Paris in June to mark the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement
Conservative leader in London, Susan Hall, slammed Khan for spending so much money and suggested he ‘stay at home and fix the problems here.’
It came on the back of a trip to Cannes in March to attend Europe’s biggest property conference MIPIM, while he went back to France in June for a meeting in the capital to mark the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement.
At that summit, he emphasised that while nation states have often been ‘climate delayers,’ cities have been ‘climate doers’ and stressed the need to turn the Paris Agreement’s promises into progress in the next decade.
And at the start of the year in January he flew to Krakow to attend the 80th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Sir Sadiq was invited after City Hall donated £300,000 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum five years ago to help preserve the concentration camp to educate future generations.
During his opening address in Rio this week, Sir Sadiq reignited his long-running feud with Donald Trump, branding the former US president one of the ‘climate wreckers’ that global city leaders must challenge.
He said: ‘Famous among the wreckers is the President of the United States of America – someone who stood up at the United Nations, only a matter of weeks ago, and called the climate crisis a scam.’
The remarks come weeks after Mr Trump falsely claimed that Sharia law had been imposed in London.
Sir Sadiq, who co-chairs the C40 network of nearly 100 cities, praised his flagship ultra low emission zone (Ulez) policy, claiming it had delivered ‘massive environmental benefits’ for London.
He also announced plans to install more solar panels on school buildings over the next year.
The three day summit in Rio, which will feature around 300 mayors, acts as a precursor to next year’s COP30 climate conference in Belem, which Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to attend.
Sir Sadiq has already made more than 20 foreign trips in the nine years that he’s been mayor since 2016 – including a trip to Paris last week to meet other mayors from the group
Eco warrior Sadiq Khan is set to make a 12,000-mile round trip to Brazil to host a climate change conference – and will total five international trips within a matter of months
In 2024, he has also travelled to New York, Rome, and Paris, while in 2023 he flew to Argentina and the US for similar climate events.
Data from 2023 and 2024, collated by The Telegraph, shows Mr Khan travelled with 23 staff members on four trips to New York, Rome, and Paris, two of which were climate related events.
Sir Sadiq’s overseas travel has now topped 20 trips since he became mayor in 2016.
His Rio visit means he will miss London’s Oxford Street Christmas lights switch-on, while back home, even Labour colleagues have expressed frustration over his climate record.
A letter from Leonie Cooper, chair of the London Assembly’s environment committee, warned that the capital was ‘not yet on track’ to hit its 2030 net zero goal and urged City Hall to urgently boost investment in green projects.
The cost of the Rio trip is expected to be covered by the C40 organisation, which is funded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Despite all his air travel, Khan has long been opposed to the expansion of Heathrow Airport, telling reporters in 2023: ‘We don’t want more flights.’
Adding in January 2025: ‘I remain opposed to a new runway at Heathrow Airport because of the severe impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets.
‘I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment.’
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: ‘Sadiq was proud to visit Africa earlier this year – the first Mayor of London to lead a trade mission to the continent. During visits, the Mayor works tirelessly to bang the drum for London, promoting growth, generating new trade and investment opportunities and developing cultural links.’