THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE 43
in the world, New York City, is looking to undertake extreme measures to protect its heavily at-risk residents, including a five- mile seawall and protective sand dunes, and even reportedly paying residents to move out of especially problematic areas. Climate has even been shown, in multi- ple studies, to have been a contributing factor in the Syrian Civil War. Droughts caused severe water scarcity, driving farmers to abandon their crops and migrate into cities. The resulting popula- tion influx placed an unsustainable burden on water resources, and triggered an agricultural collapse – contributing heavily to the growing social unrest. Journalist and author David Wallace-
Wells in ‘The Uninhabitable Earth,’ comments on how Bangladesh could see a much greater number of ‘climate refugees’: “The likely flooding threatens to create 10 times as many [as the Syrian Civil War], received by a world that will be even further destabilised by climate chaos. And then there will be the refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the rest of South Asia – 140 million by 2050, the World Bank estimates, meaning more than a hundred times that of the Syrian crisis.”
He adds: “UN projections are bleaker: 200 million climate refugees by 2050. Two hundred million was the entire world population at the peak of the Roman Empire.”
If the world’s emissions continue on their current track, whatever our politi- cians proclamations of limiting it or reducing immigration, some level of mass migration is looking likely. Notwithstanding the economic or human toll, how will the housing crisis be worsened as a result? If we can’t build houses quickly enough currently, what evidence is there that we will be able to as the world economy weakens while the nation’s population increases and ages?
THE WORLD IS BURNING 80 PER CENT MORE COAL THAN WE WERE IN THE YEAR 2000, AND OVER HALF OF THE CARBON EMISSIONS WE HAVE SENT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE THROUGH FOSSIL FUELS HAVE BEEN EMITTED IN THE PAST THREE DECADES
Conclusion: the good, the bad, and the realities
When considering these difficult realities, it can be easy to look accusingly back towards our ancestors at the rise of the industrial age, in the search for someone or something to blame. A fact that may surprise many however, with the general assumption that two centuries of rampant industrialism and the carbon the developed world burnt in the process are at fault, is the unsettling knowledge that the vast majority of the damage that has been done since climate change has been a known effect.
The world is reportedly burning 80 per cent more coal than we were even in the year 2000, and over half of the carbon emissions we have sent into the atmos- phere through the burning of fossil fuels have been emitted in just the past three decades. If the world can increase emissions at this pace, then logically it can reduce them at a similar pace, if some kind of ‘world war’ level of action against carbon emissions is engaged in. It is important to consider however that whatever efforts the UK makes, our country only contributed around 1.02 per
cent of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2017, and even the US only contributed around 13.77 per cent. China, despite concerted recent efforts to reduce emissions, still produced around 29.34 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions that year.
An interesting point brought up by David Wallace-Wells in ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ is that some territories could even be set to gain from climate change. He believes that countries in colder climates such as Canada and Russia stand to gain slightly, mainly economically, with the raised temperature providing benefits such as increased crop growth. While Wallace-Wells makes the point that countries like Canada are likely to align with partners in maintaining climate measures, it could prove an advantage that a country such as Russia in unlikely to ignore, leading it to continue burning fossils fuels.
Despite all this doom and gloom however, at least climate change is finally widely understood, and the world is taking it more seriously than ever before.
WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK
Outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May was right in saying that the UK has made some decidedly positive steps. The UK’s 2050 emissions target is in itself something that would have been sniffed at by many not too long ago, however in 2017 renewables made up almost a third of the UK’s electricity generation. This April this year Britain broke its record of the longest continuous period without generating electricity from coal – 90 hours. Carbon removal technol- ogy is rising, solar technology is getting vastly cheaper, the benefits of green walls, garden cities, and abundant planting is being adopted in cities and towns across the country, and in areas across the world, the Ozone layer is healing – with scientists predicting a full recovery by 2060. If the construction sector can continue to change its attitude towards the built environment’s carbon output, and Government can provide the funding and infrastructure necessary to enable this, we can vastly reduce the impending damage. A huge part of this is making sure that UK homes are dry, cool, and efficient, not just for future generations, but for the near- term too.
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