CLIMATE ACTION
IF WE ACT°TOGETHER KEEPING 1.5 C ALIVE BY EDWARD MAZRIA
We are at the crossroads of the most significant crisis and the greatest opportunity in modern times. Cities, architects, and planners must develop and repurpose the built environment to meet the 1.5°C carbon budget.
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here’s an old saying in the U.S.: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else. So when we talk about keeping 1.5° C alive, we need to know where we’re going. The International Panel on Climate Change established a carbon budget in order to meet the 1.5° C maximum global warming, and that is between 300 and 400 gigatons of CO2. That’s how much we can release into the atmosphere and meet the 1.5. What does that mean? Well, today, we emit about 40 gigatons of CO2 a year, which means we need to have a 50% to 65% reduction by 2030 and a phaseout by 2040. That is our timeline. Is it possible? Building operations are about 25%-27% of emissions worldwide, but if you add in
constructing buildings—cement, steel, and bricks—plus interiors, plumbing, site work, and roads—that adds in another 10%. Roughly half of all emissions are attributed to the built environment. How do we achieve a zero-carbon built environment? It’s a two-step process. Design/Planning & Construction The first step, design/planning and construction, can get us 70% to 80% of the way there at no cost or low-cost options. And that includes electrification, on-site renewables, no on-site fossil fuels, establishing growth boundaries, transit development, bringing agriculture into the city, designing our buildings correctly, orienting them the right way, the right kind of fenestration, glazing and shading, and
Sustainable Sites Sustainable sites maintain and/or regenerate soils and vegetation, manage and filter stormwater, and create advantageous microclimate conditions, like at the Bürkle-Bleiche Senior Living Center in Emmendingen, Germany, by Rolf Disch Solar Architecture.
©ROLF DISCH SOLAR ARCHITECTURE/2030 PALETTE
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what materials and how we build our building. We can even sequester carbon and create carbon-positive structures. Renewables The second step is designing for renewables. You need to power the built environment with renewables, which gets us the other 20% to 30% of a zero-carbon built environment. Renewables can be building-integrated renewables or bringing in renewable energy from off-site such as wind, solar, and hydro. The 2030 Palette is a free online resource for designing zero-carbon, adaptable, and resilient built environments, everything from how we develop our cities and a region down to buildings and building elements.
