Mete Coban MBE: Sadiq Khan's new high-flying eco adviser (on £148k per year)

Despite his presence being needed at the United Nations and White House, he's made time for Londoners

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Last week Sadiq Khan announced his new Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, Mete Coban MBE:

Coban said he was “honoured” to take on the £147,769-a-year role.

I’ll bet! Coban, who up until recently was Hackney Council's Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, is someone I’ve followed closely in recent times.

I first noticed him in videos last year promoting Hackney’s £61 million investment in “climate action”:

It seemed an extraordinary sum, as though Hackney were being equated to a whole country in terms of its contribution to climate change.

Coban pressed upon residents the importance of protecting “children’s lungs” via Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and other measures.

Repeatedly Coban’s videos came into my X feed, as if the algorithms were encouraging me to nose deeper. In turn, I did.

I went onto Coban’s Instagram and discovered him living something of a double life, which he made 0 effort to disguise. In fact, he was only too happy to show off his activities - especially those involving international travel.

Photos on Coban’s Instagram often alternated between him lecturing others on climate change - and travelling abroad.

Coban in Barcelona and then Hackney

He came out with statements such as:

“As the Cabinet Member responsible for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, it’s my responsibility to ensure our children breathe clean air.”

and:

“Our GND will create green jobs, tackle toxic air pollution”

But none of this ever applied to him.

While Hackney residents had restrictions placed on their own travel, via anti-traffic measures like LTNs, Coban was jetting off all over the globe:

“guatemala dump”

“cheeky weekend in miami”:

Plus, despite being so invested in “Low traffic Hackney”…

… he even showed off about racing in Dubai:

40,000 air miles

Having seen these images, I eventually wrote this piece for The Sunday Telegraph, calculating that Coban had racked up 40,000 in air miles since taking on his climate change role:

In response, Coban said:

The majority of the flights relate to my role as the chief executive of a youth-led charity, and I make no apology for my advocacy on behalf of young people at some of the highest levels of decision-making, including at the United Nations and the White House.

I take a keen interest in how we can change the world for the better, and as such, I am invited to conferences and events around the world where I can learn and exchange best practices to take action on global issues.

I’m proud of the responsibilities that come with my roles, and travelling is an essential part of fulfilling my duties.

He had been referring to his role as CEO of the charity My Life My Say (MLMS) - which he resigned from last week after becoming Khan’s Deputy Mayor for the Environment.

In this video he expands on the importance of the job, explaining that:

Often that means that I have to travel round the world and bang the drum for young people at some of the highest levels of decision making, which includes the G20, the United Nations and at The White House.

At the time of this video, Coban was a £39k-per-year Hackney councillor.

But through MLMS, he was able to channel loftier ambitions; as though a global thought leader:

I’d wager that most people have never heard of MLMS, but it has big backers; one of its partners being the Tony Blair Institute (TBI):

Recently the two organisations held a “Future of Britain” conference together:

Alastair Campbell also seems to be a fan of the charity:

Other leftie “celebs” like Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu have appeared at its events:

Additional partners of MLMS include Ben and Jerry’s (not sure why it is so interested in the voting habits of young Brits, incidentally):

as well as “Tinder, Snapchat… Pearl and Dean cinemas, Rolling Stone, Premier League football clubs, SpareRoom, Outernet, and many other spaces where young people interact”…

… and Lime Bike

- which also happened to win a £2 million contract to run the bikes in Hackney in early 2022.

More here:

Mete Coban MBE, Hackney’s cabinet member for environment and transport and a close ally of Sadiq Khan, is facing backlash over his charity My Life My Say’s formal partnership with Lime, which won a £2m contract to run e-bikes in Hackney in early 2022.

“lead change within society”

According to its profile on the Charity Commission, MLMS empowers “our generation to participate in democracy, by creating spaces for dialogue across communities and generations, and by providing young and socially excluded citizens with the tools to lead change within society”:

What does this amount to, in practice?

Well here’s Coban fronting MLMS’s “Don’t Sit on the Sidelines” voter registration campaign:

He described it as a “groundbreaking initiative” that “aims to encourage football fans to register to vote for the upcoming London Mayoral and General Elections in 2024.”

But all it appears to be is a two-page spread with a QR code:

This “groundbreaking initiative” “featured in the match-day programme” at Fulham FC (a lovely coincidence for Coban, who loves football):

Further activities at MLMS include “Quarantine Question Time (QQT)”, to “strengthen the need for democracy and youth engagement” and “Challenge the media narrative that young people are to blame for the rise of Covid-19 cases”…

… and “Democracy Cafes”, a “reinvigoration of the 17th century coffee house tradition where members of society would gather and discuss local issues”, spurred on by Starbucks.

MLMS adds: “This model brings a social buzz back to coffee shops”.

With its work helping young people drink a cup of coffee, you can see why Blair and Campbell are so taken by this amazing charity…

… and why its amazing leader jetted off to Washington D.C. and Athens, where he was needed at the “highest levels of decision-making, including at the United Nations and The White House”:

Although Coban has told Hackney residents that “tackling the climate crisis starts locally”, remember: it’s different for him.

A new chapter

Despite being the youngest councillor ever elected - as Coban often likes to remind people - he has done a lot in his lifetime, clocking up up seven appointments on Companies House, five now dissolved…

… as well as going through a political evolution:

Black Lives Matter era

The Brexit Years

Coban even appears to have dabbled in football - as a former scout (post has since been deleted):

Link here

There were even whispers of a signing:

Article here

Google Translate:

Turkish football fans are especially familiar with Mete Serdar Çoban, the youngest member of Hackney Municipality.

Mete Serdar Çoban, who showed himself to be playing for Galatasaray and Inter's youth team in 2011 and got him transferred to Real Madrid (!), quickly became a legend without even kicking a ball, and even adorned the pages of world-famous newspapers. However, after the research, it was revealed that Mete Serdar Çoban had deceived everyone and did not play for any of these teams. Three years after this interesting incident, Mete Serdar Çoban, a 21-year-old politics student who came to the fore once again, hopes to inspire young people with politics this time.

Others have been less convinced by his football credentials:

But that’s all history now, and environmentalism suits him well.

A national treasure

Coban is clearly a man of many interests and talents, something that has not gone unnoticed - with him being awarded an MBE in 2021 for his work engaging young people in the UK and Europe in democracy (hopefully they didn’t forget his work in the US too):

It also explains why he is so loved by the Left and environmentalists, many congratulating him on his appointment:

On his salary of £147,769, Coban will take over from Shirley Rodrigues, perhaps most famous for pressuring researchers into changing their findings to support ULEZ:

Coban has big shoes to fill.

But I’m sure he’s more than capable of rising to the challenge.