Fare Free London is arranging a hybrid public meeting during London Climate Action Week on 26th June to hear from campaigners fighting to make transport and energy free and fair to all.
Register for the event here
Event summary: As the climate crisis deepens and inequality worsens, people around the world are fighting for bold, practical solutions that meet our needs and protect our planet.
As part of London Climate Action Week, this public meeting brings together two campaigns working to make essential services like transport and energy free, fair, and accessible to everyone: Fare Free London, and Energy for All.
We’ll also hear from a researcher and campaigner sharing lessons from Brazil, where 132 cities have already made public transport free.
NOTE: In case if you can’t attend this event in-person, please select the virtual ticket. We will share a zoom link closer to the event date.
Fare Free London campaigns for free public transport in London, bringing together unions, communities, and environmental groups. Our survey explores how fares impact daily life and social justice. While London-focused, we support a national movement and are connected to campaigns in Glasgow and elsewhere.
Free public transport opens the city to all. Like healthcare, education, and public parks, it should be a public service, supported by public investment. It is central to a vision of London as a city where people, their health, and the lives they live come first.
Free public transport is socially just, supporting low-income families who are least likely to own a car. It means better services, underpinned by substantial investment, with a secure, properly-rewarded workforce. It is a necessary action to tackle global climate change and local air pollution.
Free transport is already a reality in cities like Belgrade (Serbia), Tallinn (Estonia), Montpellier and Dunkerque (France), and Albuquerque and Kansas City (USA), and even in countries such as Luxemburg. We call on the Mayor and Greater London Authority to commit to free public transport, and to commission research into how to deliver it. We urge national government to support this and change finance rules so local authorities can fund it.
Fuel Poverty Action – Energy For All
In 2022 Fuel Poverty Action came up with an idea to turn unjust energy pricing on its head. We said everyone should have access to enough energy to cover their basic needs. Energy is a human right, essential for our survival and no one should be denied that.
But the luxury use of the rich should cost more, and the fossil fuel companies profiting from the planet’s destruction by feeding over consumption should pay more in tax and lose their subsidies to ensure our needs are met. Everyone should benefit from a commitment to fairness in the provision of energy. With access to the benefits of cheap or free renewable energy which is wasted or goes mainly to the wealthy under the present system
We call this plan, Energy For All (e4a); enough energy guaranteed to meet every household’s needs, for free. That’s the essentials like heating, lighting, cooking plus lifesaving medical and mobility aids where required. It would not be means tested. Under this system we would all have the security of knowing we are covered.
We call on organisations of all kinds, and by leaders in faith, educational, entertainment, research, governmental, or any other institution, national or local, to support the Energy For All Manifesto to build weight behind the demand.
Daniel Santini, Free Public Transport in Brazil
Cities in Brazil are at the forefront of an international movement towards abolishing fares on public transport. Brazil now has 132 municipalities with completely free public transport, more than any other country in the world.
Free public transport is a huge win for social justice, and has the potential to help deal with air pollution and global warming when combined with policies to cut down car use.
We will hear from Daniel Santini, a journalist, researcher at the University of São Paulo, and author of No Turnstile: from utopia to the reality of Fare Free Public Transport (Sem Catraca: da utopia à verdade da Tarifa Zero, 2024 – not yet available in English).
