Climate change is a global challenge. A challenge to develop new energy and environmental policies, more effective technological and market-based strategies, and greater synergies between developed and emerging countries.
A Fistful of Degrees
If the economic climate, taken as that set of political and social conditions that characterize a certain period, has always been one of the main parameters for examining company performance, the last few years have seen increasing importance being given by economists to the climate, taken as a set of meteorological conditions.
An element—to borrow a collective bargaining term from slightly less recent times—that can no longer be called an “independent variable” for output and general economic values. In other words, we can no longer think of the climate as an additional cost which requires us to take out extra insurance (although it is this too, as insurance companies know only too well).
The global economy on the one hand, and greater interest in guaranteeing “sustainable development” as a way of ensuring long-term growth on the other, have forced the business world (and, on a wider scale, the international political economy) to take a more systematic approach to dealing with this problem. Climatic disasters such as the recent hurricanes in the US or the widespread (almost tropical) flooding in Central Europe had set off alarm signals in the minds of many economists about the impact of such events upon worldwide growth. It will not only be the US who have to pay tributes to the goddess Katrina, after a GNP reduction of approximately half a point in 2005, nor can climatic changes be limited geographically. Indeed, a proper understanding of the effects of climate change is still a long way off. However, this should not represent a sufficient reason to undervalue or misinterpret them. Discussions between industrialized and developing countries about better economic balance will ignore this problem at their peril. A fistful of degrees of worldwide temperature rise, and the catastrophe that such a thing would entail, cannot be the tribute we have to pay to guarantee development. On the other hand, economic growth—taken as a worldwide improvement in living conditions—must not be stopped, endorsing even further the gap between a few rich nations and all the other countries, who are becoming increasingly important for the global economy. The problem of “growth versus pollution” does not exist, but we have to find some solution to provide for “sustainable growth” (and not just in environmental terms).
People’s attention has recently been concentrated on reducing carbon emissions and on long-term plans for reduction commitments, without forgetting about economic growth. The Kyoto Protocol, which came into force earlier 2005, ordered an average reduction in greenhouse gases in the EU of 8% (over 1990 figures) between 2008 and 2012. The EU—as the European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas states in the current issue of arcVision—has already taken its first steps down the Kyoto path which, “in spite of some weaknesses, was a step in the right direction.” It has mainly been with the ETS program, which will not only provide market-based (financial) mechanisms for EU-based industries but it will also create additional incentives for businesses to transfer eco-compatible technology to developing nations. Even the United States, which have not signed up to Kyoto, Harlan L. Watson of the US Department of State says, are committed to long-term emission reductions. Cooperation between countries on sustainable development—stresses Björn Stigson, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development—is a vital commitment we must make, especially in view of the ongoing industrial expansion (and therefore greater energy demands) in some major developing countries, with China and India in the front line. However, if Kyoto is the best way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions—as Lester R. Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute writes in Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble—another fundamental area is efficiency in energy production, especially the use of technology that does not require fossil and non-renewable fuels. Speaking of energy efficiency, what ever happened to Italy—asks Roberto Della Seta, President of Legambiente—which was once, at least until the 1980’s, the European leader in this area? Discussion is still on-going, and needs further input.
Sustainable development and energy efficiency applied to architecture are dealt with in the Projects section of this issue. If a building must be “poetry and machinery,” the projects illustrated are an example. And amendments to current building regulations will be the mean to make those projects the starting point for the application of new energy standards.
