Posts tagged with 'buildings'
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
Developing City Action Plans for Building Decarbonization
City officials tasked with reducing and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from their communities face a tricky task in estimating building emissions as they work to prevent the most harmful impacts of climate change. The biggest challenge is that there isn’t consensus ...
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
How Africa’s First Chief Heat Officer is Helping to Create a More Resilient Freetown
“Climate change is affecting cities all around the world, and Freetown is no exception.” That’s what Eugenia Kargbo, Freetown’s Chief Heat Officer, told UrbanShift during the City Academy hosted in Kigali last year. Through her role—the first of its kind in ...
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
As the Earth Gets Hotter, Can Our Cities Get Cooler?
This summer the Northern Hemisphere has been so hot with record temperatures — including at sea — that discussions have turned to the limits of human survival. Even in the Antarctic, sea ice is failing to re-form, a drastic departure ...
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
New Data Dashboard Helps Cities Build Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate
Climate change is impacting cities and their residents in many profound ways, from poor air quality to flooding to biodiversity loss and extreme heat. Now, with the help of a new tool, select cities can access localized, integrated data to ...
5 Priorities for Urban Climate Action in 2023 and Beyond
5 Priorities for Urban Climate Action in 2023 and Beyond
We now have less than seven years to cut emissions in half in order to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees C, the limit scientists say is necessary for averting some of the most dangerous climate impacts. 2022 saw flooding, drought and severe ...
Will the Fight Against Climate Change SURGe in 2023?
Will the Fight Against Climate Change SURGe in 2023?
Since COP27 wound down late last year (November 6-18), much of the post event commentary has centered on the fact that as observed by The Conversation, the gathering “failed to go beyond the 2021 Glasgow climate pact’s promise to phase down ...
Bogotá and Cali Connect Local Action to National Ambition to Transform the Buildings Sector
Bogotá and Cali Connect Local Action to National Ambition to Transform the Buildings Sector
Following the launch of Colombia’s first National Roadmap for Net Zero Buildings in June 2022, the cities of Bogotá and Cali are setting the foundation for how to implement the roadmap at the local level. The municipal governments of both cities have ...
6 Cities and Local Governments Accelerating Zero Carbon Buildings
6 Cities and Local Governments Accelerating Zero Carbon Buildings
While building construction and operations are among the largest contributors to climate change, accounting for nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions globally, they also remain the most cost-effective climate mitigation solution available. Every $1 invested in efficiency saves $2 in ...
6 Takeaways from the 2022 IPCC Climate Change Mitigation Report
6 Takeaways from the 2022 IPCC Climate Change Mitigation Report
With every fraction of a degree of global warming, climate change impacts will intensify. In the latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, 278 scientists from 65 countries find that the world should peak GHG ...
5 Takeaways for Decarbonizing Buildings from COP26
5 Takeaways for Decarbonizing Buildings from COP26
For the building and construction sector, COP26 in Glasgow marked a crucial moment to bring consensus around systemic change in the industry. It was the first time in COP history that the Built Environment had a dedicated day, alongside Cities ...
5 Ways China’s Cities Can Drive Equitable and Sustainable Urbanization
5 Ways China’s Cities Can Drive Equitable and Sustainable Urbanization
China is experiencing the largest city-ward movement of people in human history. 700 million people have moved to the nation’s cities since the beginning of economic reforms in 1978. In that same time, the urbanization rate rose from less than a fifth to close ...
How to Build Smart, Zero Carbon Buildings - and Why it Matters
How to Build Smart, Zero Carbon Buildings – and Why it Matters
Reducing carbon emissions in buildings will be critical to achieving the Paris climate goals and achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Buildings represent 39% of global greenhouse gas emissions, including 28% in operational emissions and 11% in building materials and construction. Global building floorspace ...
A Green Recovery Starts with Cities
A Green Recovery Starts with Cities
National governments face an enormous triple challenge right now: recovering from COVID-19, creating sustainable and inclusive development, and addressing the climate crisis. New research shows that focusing on cities is key to overcoming these challenges while generating considerable economic, social and environmental benefits. A ...
Lax Regulation Doesn’t Fully Explain Unsafe Buildings in African Cities: A View from Ghana
Lax Regulation Doesn’t Fully Explain Unsafe Buildings in African Cities: A View from Ghana
Incidents of building collapse are worryingly common in large African cities. One study counted 54 building collapse deaths and 122 injuries in Kampala, Uganda, between 2004 and 2008. Another identified 112 cases in Lagos, Nigeria, from 1978 to 2008. Cities in Ghana and Kenya, ...
Accelerating Recovery for People Through Building Energy Efficiency
Accelerating Recovery for People Through Building Energy Efficiency
This article originally appeared in Energy Efficiency Magazine as part of a series of responses about energy efficiency’s role in global economic recovery from COVID-19. Energy-efficient buildings are an important key to unlocking recovery from the health and economic crises ...
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