Climate change is a hot topic…and with good reason.
Signed in 2016, the Paris Agreement sits at the center of the fight against global climate change. Ultimately, its end goal is to ensure that global temperatures don’t rise more than 2° C above pre-industrial levels. Reaching 2° C could mean catastrophic weather outcomes like drought, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for millions of people. The “point-of-no-return” date for a global transition to clean energy sources is 2030.
And while the Paris Agreement sets a 2 degree rise in temperature as the limit, a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) challenges that. Last October, the IPCC warned us that an increase of just 1.5° C is enough to cause those major impacts across the globe.
Today, we’re currently at 1° C above the pre-industrial benchmark.
The push for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is top priority, and the building industry, one of the top contributors of those emissions, must step up. Approximately 33% of energy used in North America is attributed to heating, cooling, and operating buildings.
Architects play a key role as influencers in the design of carbon-neutral buildings. ....
