22 | New Scientist | 9 November 2019
W
E HAVE to do
everything, and
we have to do it
immediately.” That quote, from
climate scientist Piers Forster at
the University of Leeds, UK, has
haunted me ever since I wrote
it down almost a year ago. I was
interviewing Forster for a piece on
limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Like many senior scientists from
the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), he remains
institutionally optimistic that we
can pull off a rescue. But he didn’t
mince his words.
That was just after an IPCC
report spelled out the scale and
speed of the changes needed to
avoid catastrophic warming of
more than 1.5°C. It was widely
reported as giving us “12 years
to save the planet” – not entirely
accurate, but not entirely wrong
either, and a useful rallying cry for
action. We now have 11 years. So it’s
a good time to ask, with another
year over, what have we done?
I put this question to
another titan in the climate
ecosystem, Petteri Taalas,
secretary-general of the World
Meteorological Organization. I
asked him what had actually
happened since the 1.5°C report
came out. His answer can be
summarised in two words: not
much. Carbon emissions and
consumption of fossil fuels are
still rising, he admitted. But, he
said, “the mental attitude has
changed... sentiment has moved
in the right direction”.
Really? Is that all we have?
Sure, sentiment matters, but Greta
Thunberg alone can’t achieve the
hard yards of getting emissions
down. I felt like Talaas was putting
a brave face on an increasingly
hopeless situation. A few weeks on
from our conversation, however,
my gloom has lifted a little. I’m
not about to do a U-turn: we arestill in deep trouble. But if you
look behind the headline figures
on greenhouse gas emissions and
fossil fuel consumption, there
are glimmers of light.
One of them is emanating
from an industry that is rarely
recognised as being on the front
line of the climate fight, yet
actually wields a disproportionate
influence: architecture. In the past
year, UK architects have declared
a climate emergency, inspired
in part by a new grass-roots
organisation called the Architects
Climate Action Network! (ACAN)
whose stated aim is to rapidly
decarbonise the building sector.
That may sound like small beer,
but it isn’t. According to the IPCC,
buildings are responsible forabout a third of the world’s total
energy consumption, and so the
built environment is absolutely
critical to solving the climate
crisis. The 1.5°C report called for all
new buildings to be carbon neutral
by 2020, the most ambitious
target in the entire document.
According to Duncan Baker-
Brown from the School of
Architecture and Design at the
University of Brighton, UK, ACAN
increasingly reflects mainstream
opinion in the sector. Even those
working on colossal infrastructure
projects, such as the Heathrow
Airport expansion and the HS2
railway – guzzlers of concrete and
steel – are seriously thinking
about how to go zero carbon.
Similar movements are emerging
across Europe and North America.
Architecture can make a realimpact, says Baker-Brown.
“Architects specify what buildings
are made of, and can therefore
decide to make them out of
environmentally benign stuff.”
That principally means recycling
materials instead of demolishing
buildings. To put it in perspective,
the construction industry creates
60 per cent of the UK’s waste –
120 million tonnes a year – and the
built environment contributes
around 40 per cent of the UK’s
carbon footprint. “Architects are
thinking, ‘Actually, we can do
something about this’, ” he says.
This isn’t the sole solution. But
if a small group of activists inside
a profession like architecture can
turn sentiment into action in less
than a year, then maybe Taalas’s
optimism is justified.
The renewable energy industry –
the one bright spot in the gloomy
picture painted by the IPCC – is
also powering on. Last month,
the International Energy Agency
reported that offshore wind could
generate more than enough
electricity to meet global demand.
That would go a long way to
decarbonising not just our
energy supply, but also buildings,
transport and industry, four of the
sectors earmarked by the IPCC for
immediate and transformational
change. And if the Green New
Deal – a gigantic environmental
infrastructure plan proposed by
the US Democratic party – can
be set in motion next year, then
we are really starting to talk
about a revolution.
Forster is feeling optimistic too.
“With the public, businesses and
cities, the conversations have
shifted from if we cut emissions to
how,” he says. “Government needs
to do much more, but even here,
there are some encouraging signs.”
We still have to do everything,
immediately. But at least we
aren’t doing nothing. ❚This column appears
monthly. Up next week:
Annalee Newitz“ If you look behind
the headline figures
on greenhouse gas
emissions and fossil
fuels, there are
glimmers of light”A case of cautious climate optimism A year ago, we were told
we had 12 years to save the planet. We now have 11. What have we
achieved in that time? You may be surprised, says Graham LawtonNo planet B
What I’m reading
The Wall by John
Lanchester. I find
dystopian, post-
apocalyptic fiction
weirdly comforting.What I’m watching
Chernobyl. I find
dystopian, post-
apocalyptic docudramas
weirdly comforting.What I’m working on
I’m in Cambridge for a
very juicy-looking human
evolution conference.Graham’s week
Graham Lawton is a staff
writer at New Scientist and
author of The Origin of (Almost)
Everything. You can follow him
@grahamlawtonViews Columnist
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