continued

We know the long-term costs of failure: massive extinctions, major cities permanently flooded, millions and millions of premature deaths, enormous deprivations.

We also know that there is essentially no practical limit on the amount we can spend on climate change mitigation, in the sense that spending now will pay back and more over time. As quickly as we can feasibly mobilize and finance investment in climate crisis responses, we are unlikely to be able to overspend relative to the avoided costs. This is well established by the Stern report and other studies.

How are we doing?

As dire as the latest scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are, and as urgent as the need for response that they describe is, a tremendous amount of more recent information suggests strongly that the state of our climate is in fact rather worse.

Lead NASA scientist James Hansen and a group of co-authors published a major paper this month that looked at paleoclimates as indicators of Earth's long-term greenhouse gas climate sensitivity. This is important as a scientific approach to estimating impacts that is independent of the climate-modeling approach. Their results suggest that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide need to be held down to 350 parts per million (ppm), rather than the [current European Union] target of 550 ppm, to avoid disastrous triggering of "climate switches."

While the timing and perhaps likelihood of catastrophic ice collapses remain hard to quantify, it is also clear that major ice sheets north and south are melting much faster than the conservative IPCC predictions. This faster ice melt is correlated with sea level rises that also appear to be faster than projected through the IPCC process.

Together with these indications that the climate may be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previous consensus estimates, and that large-scale changes are occurring faster than previous consensus predictions, it also seems that greenhouse gas emissions are increasing at a greater-than-estimated and still-accelerating rate.

As recently reported by BBC News, "NOAA figures show CO2 concentrations rising by 2.4 parts per million (ppm) from 2006 to 2007. By comparison, the average annual increase between 1979 and 2007 was 1.65ppm.
Concentrations now stand at 384 ppm, compared to about 280 ppm before the era of human industrialization began.

"The rise in CO2 is not exceptional compared with the previous few years, but does add more evidence that concentrations are rising faster than they were a decade or so ago."

The UK is in the process of reconsidering national carbon emission targets for 2050, currently set at 60% percent below 1990 levels. Critics concerned about climate want the target advanced to 80% below 1990.

According to a separate BBC News report, "Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa (in his capacity as current European Council President) agreed that industrialised nations would need to cut emissions by between 25 percent and 40 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2020.

"Europe is pushing for a global deal to take effect when the current Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012, and has pledged to cut its own emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and by 30 percent if the other industrialised countries follow suit."

Now What?

It is widely recognized that we need strong targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. And clarity is emerging around the idea that these targets need to be stringent — more stringent in many cases than the first-round targets adopted even in leading jurisdictions.

Yet whether a target for 2020 is 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent (the current UK target) below 1990 emissions levels matters little unless we set ourselves decisively to achieving it. And from this perspective of Earth Day 2008, the need for action is great enough, and the error bars in our projections are of such a scale, that the most important thing is really to get going, heading in the right general direction — in the direction of actually emitting less carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases.

Aiming for Targets

There are a couple of key easy steps for governments at all levels to pursue. Long-term, large-area targets need to be divided into five-year segments, and to be divided up among metropolitan areas. This relatively simple process will help make responsibilities necessarily immediate.

Some states in Europe and the United States are already at work on this.

Design professionals need not wait for levels of government to establish nicely refined time and place emissions reductions matrices. A couple of professionals equipped with standard regional economic data and population trends should be able to work up a quick linear approximation of the matrix for the area of any major project proposal. A service committee of the local professional chapter, focused on results, could work it up on behalf of all the firms in the area.

This is an absolutely necessary exercise for regional planning, and to evaluate the impact of significant projects on regional emissions trends.

What about the buildings?

We need to wrap our minds (and planners' and clients' minds) around the fact that building a new building, in a society where transportation is dominated by private motor vehicles, is a regional act. The impact of each new building on transportation usage cannot be ignored, and the key rule of thumb here is the geography of vehicle-miles traveled (VMT).

Even if we hold off for a moment on the serious challenge of location issues, coming to grips with the climate responsibility of new building is daunting.

Suppose we consider 20% below 1990 by 2020, a current mid-range goal, as our target. What share of emissions can be practically assigned to a new building, in conformance with meeting the target?

Realistically, the answer is: none.

There is no share of new carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions which can realistically be allocated to new buildings, if we are to meet vital emissions targets.

First, since our emissions have already increased nearly 40% above 1990 levels, a 20% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels means 60% below current levels.

If there are no emissions whatsoever from new buildings, starting now, that leaves an enormous challenge. With no emissions from new buildings, 60 to 70 percent savings below current levels needs to be wrung out of existing building stock and associated systems — in the next 12 years.

That's an enormous challenge. And it's not going to be even that easy, because in truth, buildings that contribute to greenhouse pollution (i.e., buildings with positive CO₂-equivalent emissions) are still being built and commissioned daily.

(The stupendous fact that the same thing is happening with coal power plants lies in a different professional sector — and only makes the tasks more difficult still, for all.)

Will conservation help? Yes, quite a bit! But even in California, a long-term leader in driving building energy savings, all the great advances in conservation per square foot have been eaten up by increases in building area used per person.

So to count on conservation to reduce building-related emissions by 60 percent or more seems rather optimistic — yet unavoidable — and the need is only exacerbated by every new carbon-polluting building.

And all that is before factoring in population increases on the order of 1.5 percent per year. Factor in growth trends, and factor in some honest shortfalls in planned performance, and other unanticipated emissions.

Emissions reductions to plan to meet a mid-range 20 percent-by-2020 target are not just 60 percent below current. Factoring in growth, the needed emissions reductions are something like 80 percent below trend.

This ocean liner needs to turn

That's why it is time to get radical. Radical along the lines of the mobilization of the United States across society during World War II. Radical along the lines of the U.S. civil rights movement in the time of Martin Luther King.

Architects need to step up and lead. We need to bring along clients and builders, dwellers, financiers, and ultimately our governments.

There's a lot going on already. And there's a lot more that needs to be done. Please join us next week for a significant call to action.

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Kevin Matthews is Editor in Chief of ArchitectureWeek

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