London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for urgent “global action” on climate change as he warned the capital’s schools, hospitals, homes and rail network face being flooded.

Mr Khan said London is at a crossroads and the “slow response” of leaders around the world “is costing lives right now”.

The Labour mayor was speaking ahead of the COP26 UN climate talks in November, the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone next month and as a new environment bill goes through parliament.

Launching the Green New Deal for London, an environmental campaign to raise awareness of the crisis, Mr Khan said the capital cannot fight climate change on its own as he called on the government to “match our ambitions”.

He said the campaign will work to protect the environment at the same time as creating jobs, with the aim of doubling the size of the green economy over the next decade.

Londoners are being given the skills for green jobs and the mayor’s office, with London councils, are “investing millions” to make homes and buildings more energy-efficient as they are responsible for 78% of London’s carbon emissions, Mr Khan said.

Without this, Mr Khan said the city would be “sleepwalking to a climate catastrophe and thousands more premature deaths from air pollution every year”.

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The mayor used figures from a newly released climate risk map as he said six London boroughs are at a “very high” risk of flooding and overheating, while a quarter of the capital’s rail stations and nearly 200,000 homes and workplaces could face flooding.

He pointed out that the Thames Barrier, which stops the city from flooding, was closed 10 times between 1981 and 1991 but since 2010, it has had to be closed 80 times.

And he said a school he had just visited, Prior Weston Primary School, was in breach of legal air pollution limits in 2017 but through mayoral funding, they installed a green screen to protect from toxic fumes and with the Ultra Low Emission Zone, it now meets legal pollution limits for the first time.

Mr Khan, who has adult-onset asthma, said 4,000 Londoners are dying prematurely each year due to toxic air while children are growing up with stunted lungs.

“It’s clear the best time to act was yesterday. But the next best time is now,” he said.

“Because – thankfully – it’s still not too late. However, we only have a small window of opportunity left.”

However, the mayor’s climate claims provoked strong backlash from campaigners against the Silvertown Tunnel, a £2.2bn project to build a new four lane tunnel under the Thames in east London.

Critics say the scheme would make air pollution and congestion worse, undermining his own priorities on dirty air and the climate emergency.

But the mayor says the plans will ease chronic congestion and are a “part of, not at odds with, my ambitious policies on climate and air quality”.

Victoria Rance, from the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition called this claim “dangerous climate denialism”.

“If we are to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, we need politicians who understand that solving the climate crisis requires facing reality and taking difficult political decisions,” she told Sky News.

“Instead, the mayor is giving us hectoring speeches and a hefty dose of greenwash to disguise one of the dirtiest new infrastructure schemes in the country – and it’s London’s children who will pay for his failure to tell the truth.”

In January, 25 London medics wrote to the mayor to protest what they called “an assault on the health of east Londoners and on the climate”.

And in July his own party urged him to halt construction, voting 74% in favour of scrapping the plans at the London Labour conference.

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