The latest IPCC report
Last week the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its sixth report, a comprehensive assessment of climate science. This one is the last to be issued in a timeframe in which humanity still has a chance to mitigate and perhaps reverse the catastrophic consequences of humanmade activity on the climate. Two more reports are expected early next year, one on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability and one on the mitigation of climate change.
The report clearly acknowledges that it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. The import of this document lies in the fact that an independent panel of climate scientists from all over the world have analyzed thousands of studies and compiled their findings on this report. The importance of it is that it was issued just short of COP26 in Glasgow, where world leaders and delegates will gather to discuss actions that countries will collectively take to mitigate the impacts of climate change and essentially cut CO2 and GHG emissions.
The report analyzes five possible scenarios depending on actions that humanity takes now. All of them predict an increase in mean temperature and more extreme weather events up to 2050 regardless of the actions we take now. The actions we take now and the severity of them will influence whether the effects of climate change will intensify, stabilize or start reversing after 2050. For the last two scenarios to happen, action must be taken now.
Source: IPCC Climate Change 2021, The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers
It is well known and that buildings, through the energy they consume during operation and the energy they need to be built, contribute to 40% of total CO2 emissions. The rest is mainly in areas like transportation, manufacturing and food production.
Every new building that is either designed or built at this moment will be around for the next 30 years at least, so each one that is not designed to be net-zero is either going to have to be retrofitted, thus add more carbon to the atmosphere, or will essentially be taking humanity further from our carbon zero goal. In addition, all buildings should provide resiliency and protection from extreme temperatures.
We have the tools and we have the knowledge to design buildings that not only consume less energy and are more resilient but also ones that protect their inhabitants from the extreme temperatures and poor air quality that climate change is turning into a ever more frequent phenomena.
Moreover, we have the facts that the average upcharge to build a building that consumes significantly less energy than its peers using the Passivehouse methodology is between 1% to 5%, which will pay for itself in a matter of a few years in terms of energy bills and instantly in terms of quality of life.
