Trial / Demo
The latest Climate Change Committee Progress Report was released last week, and revealed some depressing yet not surprising findings. Yet again the UK is falling behind on progress to meet its legally binding 2030 carbon reduction targets. The report found that this was particularly so in the built environment, stating that the carbon emissions reduction rate must triple to get on track.
We’ve known about the need to decarbonise for a long time now, yet the interventions are simply not taking place at the scale and pace required to address such a serious - and urgent - issue. Extreme weather and natural disasters are becoming increasingly commonplace – climate change is taking place before our very eyes and becoming impossible to ignore.
Yet, we continue to do so. In February this year it was reported by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service that global warming had exceeded 1.5C across an entire year. This was the long-term temperature rise limit that was agreed by world leaders at COP21 in Paris in 2015. Although this year-long breach does not violate the Paris Agreement, it is still a serious failing, and one that should have sent shockwaves through the world. Yet no one really batted an eyelid. If this doesn’t present as the stark warning that it should then what will? When will we learn?
Back in 2019, I wrote a blog on Human ‘Cognitive Biases’ that Prevent Climate Action. This was off the back of another BBC article I had read examining why we are so slow to react to the need for climate action. The article described the evolutionary issue of Cognitive Biases – systematic errors in human thinking, once essential to our survival – which draw our attention to immediate threats. It examined negative cognitive biases and positive cognitive biases. Unfortunately, in terms of Climate Change and acknowledging the seriousness of it enough to want to take action, the negative biases are still outweighing the positive ones. Most people are in some form of denial, including our governments it seems.
The recent climate report found that the UK is not on track to reduce its emissions in 2030 by 68% compared to 1990 levels - with the funding cuts and policy backtracking of recent years contributing to this lag. We know that buildings have a significant role to play in delivering on this commitment, but while building emissions have fallen, we’re seeing a much smaller reduction than projected. This is unfathomable in an era where we have the tools to understand how buildings are working in practice, improve their efficiency, and reduce emissions at our fingertips. In many cases, this is because the policy and resources are not available to utilise them to their full potential.
While we have immediate targets to meet, short-termism is not the answer – we need funding and sustained, evidence-led programmes that make it simple for businesses and people to implement lower carbon measures. With a new government now in power, our decarbonisation endeavours will be determined by how priorities come into fruition through policy – and how people and industry put this into practice.
The new Government has the opportunity to put decarbonisation high on its agenda. Having seen the global problems caused by failing to meet climate targets, this new government can take a stance not just to get the UK on track, but to demonstrate leadership to other countries on this journey.
