Fifty pollution blackspots in London are already on track to breach EU limits on toxic air, The Standard reveals today.

They include Covent Garden, Oxford Street, the City and even a number of outer London areas.

The analysis of King’s College London data came ahead of a climate change committee report which is expected to call for a ban on new diesel and petrol cars to be brought forward from 2040, possibly to 2030.

The EU annual limit for nitrogen dioxide is an average of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air.

However, in The Strand it is 84 so far this year, 80 at Walbrook Wharf in the City, 72 near Ikea in Brent, 69 in Putney High Street, 60 in Oxford Street, 58 in Tooting High Street and 44 in Covent Garden. Outer London hotspots include locations in Kingston at 65, Harrow at 47 and Romford at 43.

Ministers are under pressure to do more to protect the environment, including from campaigns led by Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion.

The climate change committee, which advises the Government, is expected to recommend tomorrow that the UK cuts greenhouse emissions to net zero by 2050. But even if ministers agree to toughen the target, from reducing emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050, it will fall short of environmentalists’ demands.

Jeremy Corbyn was today using a Commons debate to declare an “environment and climate emergency” and call for the UK’s target to be net zero emissions before 2050, though not specifying when.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, in Nigeria on a five-day trip to Africa, warned that climate change was fuelling conflict and breeding terrorism in poverty-ridden areas. He said: “If we don’t work together to tackle climate change it will have a catastrophic impact on hundreds of millions of people, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest.”

Three £153 million UK aid programmes will help African and South Asian farmers affected by climate change and also assist Ethiopia.