UN report urges ‘massive emission cuts in construction sector’ by using ‘gov’t regs & enforcement’ to achieve ‘Net Zero’ – Replace ‘concrete & steel’ with ‘stone, timber, & bamboo’
From Climate Depot
UN Environment Program Press Release of new study with Yale Center for Ecosystems & Agriculture: “Rapid urbanization worldwide means every five days, the world adds buildings equivalent to the size of Paris, with the built environment sector already responsible for 37 percent of global emissions. A report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA), under the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), offers solutions to decarbonize the buildings and construction sector and reduce the waste it generates.” …
“Until recently, most buildings were constructed using locally sourced earth, stone, timber, and bamboo. Yet modern materials such as concrete and steel often give only the illusion of durability, usually ending up in landfills and contributing to the growing climate crisis,” said Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Director of UNEP’s Industry and Economy Division. “Net zero in the building and construction sector is achievable by 2050, as long as governments put in place the right policy, incentives and regulation to bring a shift the industry action,” UNEP’s Aggarwal-Khan added.
Government regulation and enforcement is also required across all phases of the building life cycle – from extraction through end-of-use – to ensure transparency in labeling, effective international building codes, and certification schemes…“The decarbonization of the buildings and construction sector is essential for the achievement of the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
Nairobi, 12 September 2023 – Rapid urbanisation worldwide means every five days, the world adds buildings equivalent to the size of Paris, with the built environment sector already responsible for 37 per cent of global emissions. A report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA), under the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), offers solutions to decarbonize the buildings and construction sector and reduce the waste it generates.
The report, Building materials and the climate: Constructing a new future, offers policy makers, manufacturers, architects, developers, engineers, builders and recyclers a three-pronged solution to reduce “embodied carbon” emissions and the negative impacts on natural ecosystems from the production and deployment of building materials (e.g., cement, steel, aluminium, timber, biomass):
- Avoid waste through a circular approach: building less by repurposing existing buildings is the most valuable option, generating 50-75 per cent fewer emissions than new construction; promote construction with less materials and with materials that have a lower carbon footprint and facilitate reuse or recycle.
- Shift to ethically and sustainably sourced renewable bio-based building materials, including timber, bamboo, and biomass. The shift towards properly managed bio-based materials could lead to compounded emissions savings in many regions of up to 40 per cent in the sector by 2050. However, more policy and financial support is needed to ensure the widespread adoption of renewable bio-based building materials.
- Improve decarbonisation of conventional materials that cannot be replaced. This mainly concerns the processing of concrete, steel, and aluminium – three sectors responsible for 23 per cent of overall global emissions today – as well as glass and bricks. Priorities should be placed on electrifying production with renewable energy sources, increasing the use of reused and recycled materials, and scaling innovative technologies. Transformation of regional markets and building cultures is critical through building codes, certification, labelling, and the education of architects, engineers, and builders on circular practices.
The three-pronged Avoid-Shift-Improve solution needs to be adopted throughout the building process to ensure emissions are slashed and human health and biodiverse ecosystems are protected. The solution also requires, in its implementation, sensitivity to local cultures and climates, including the common perception of concrete and steel as modern materials of choice.
“Until recently, most buildings were constructed using locally sourced earth, stone, timber, and bamboo. Yet modern materials such as concrete and steel often give only the illusion of durability, usually ending up in landfills and contributing to the growing climate crisis,” said Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Director of UNEP’s Industry and Economy Division.
“Net zero in the building and construction sector is achievable by 2050, as long as governments put in place the right policy, incentives and regulation to bring a shift the industry action,” she added.
To date, most climate action in the building sector has been dedicated to effectively reducing “operational carbon” emissions, which encompass heating, cooling, and lighting. Thanks to the growing worldwide decarbonisation of the electrical grid and the use renewable energies, these are set to decrease from 75 per cent to 50 per cent of the sector in coming decades.
Since buildings contain materials produced in disparate regions across the globe, reducing “embodied carbon” emissions from production and deployment of building materials requires decisionmakers to adopt a whole life-cycle approach. This involves harmonized measures across multiple sectors and at each stage of the building lifecycle – from extraction to processing, installation, use, and demolition.
Government regulation and enforcement is also required across all phases of the building life cycle – from extraction through end-of-use – to ensure transparency in labelling, effective international building codes, and certification schemes. Investments in research and development of nascent technologies, as well as training of stakeholders in the sectors, are needed, along with incentives for cooperative ownership models between producers, builders, owners, and occupants to the shift to circular economies.
“The decarbonisation of the buildings and construction sector is essential for the achievement of the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. By providing cutting-edge scientific insights as well as very practical recommendations to reduce embodied carbon, the study ”Building materials and the climate: Constructing a new future” advances our joint mission to decarbonise the sector holistically and increase its resilience”, said Dr. Vera Rodenhoff, Deputy Director General for International Climate Action and International Energy Transition of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), which together with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has funded the study.
Case studies from Canada, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Peru, and Senegal, demonstrate how decarbonisation takes places using “Avoid-Shift-Improve” strategies: developed economies can devote resources to renovating existing ageing buildings, while emerging ones can leapfrog carbon-intensive building methods to alternative low-carbon building materials.
Cities worldwide can drive the implementation of decarbonisation. Many are already integrating vegetated surfaces, including green roofs, façades, and indoor wall assemblies to reduce urban carbon emissions and cool off buildings, increase urban biodiversity and more.
NOTE TO EDITORS
About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
About the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC)
Founded at COP21, hosted by UNEP and with 289 members, including 40 countries, the GlobalABC is the leading global platform for all buildings stakeholders committed to a common vision: A zero-emission, efficient and resilient buildings and construction sector.
About Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA)
Yale CEA unites researchers and practitioners across multiple fields, synthesising innovations in science, art and humanities towards ecosystems that prioritise the requirements of living organisms and ecologies. Our mission is to transform the DNA of the Built Environment, which is currently the sector responsible for the largest real-time climate change impacts and the consumption/production of toxic, non-renewable resources.
For more information, please contact:
News and Media Unit, UN Environment Programme
#
Key excerpts:
UN Environment Program Press Release of new study with Yale Center for Ecosystems & Agriculture: “Rapid urbanization worldwide means every five days, the world adds buildings equivalent to the size of Paris, with the built environment sector already responsible for 37 percent of global emissions. A report published today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA), under the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), offers solutions to decarbonize the buildings and construction sector and reduce the waste it generates.” …
UN plan promises massive emission cuts in the construction sector – the most polluting and toughest to decarbonize…building materials (e.g., cement, steel, aluminum, timber, biomass)…materials that have a lower carbon footprint…[to] promote construction with less materials and with materials that have a lower carbon footprint and facilitate reuse or recycle.
Shift to ethically and sustainably sourced renewable bio-based building materials, including timber, bamboo, and biomass…Priorities should be placed on electrifying production with renewable energy sources, increasing the use of reused and recycled materials, and scaling innovative technologies.
“Until recently, most buildings were constructed using locally sourced earth, stone, timber, and bamboo. Yet modern materials such as concrete and steel often give only the illusion of durability, usually ending up in landfills and contributing to the growing climate crisis,” said Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Director of UNEP’s Industry and Economy Division. “Net zero in the building and construction sector is achievable by 2050, as long as governments put in place the right policy, incentives and regulation to bring a shift the industry action,” UNEP’s Aggarwal-Khan added.
Government regulation and enforcement is also required across all phases of the building life cycle – from extraction through end-of-use – to ensure transparency in labeling, effective international building codes, and certification schemes…“The decarbonization of the buildings and construction sector is essential for the achievement of the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
“UN report urges ‘massive emission cuts in construction sector’ by using ‘gov’t regs & enforcement’ to achieve ‘Net Zero’”
Few in the UK realise that we already have limits on construction in line with the 2050 strategy. This is a real problem as the lack of housing crisis – yes, I do believe it is a crisis in the making – grows worse as each boat lands on the shore and other alleged refugee type people tumble out of the back of lorries and containers etc.
Buying your own house is nigh on an impossible dream for most young people, today. Supply and demand. We haven’t even built a reservoir since the 1970s
“Students lose ‘luxury housing’ to migrants after Home Office forces them out
Government accused of ‘outrageous’ intervention with 150 undergraduates in need of a tenancy a week before term begins”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/30/home-office-migrants-luxury-student-housing-huddersfield/
The hotels are pretty much full now and a lot of people have been thrown out of work…
“Staff say they have lost their jobs at a hotel after it was taken over by the Home Office to house asylum seekers. Immigration officials are now in place at the Hull Humber View Hotel in North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, after the first migrants moved in this week.”
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022-11-18/staff-lose-jobs-as-first-asylum-seekers-arrive-at-hotel
Brexit Bonus Lost
“The Government had claimed easing [EU] environmental rules would ‘unblock’ [building] more than 100,000 homes between now and 2030 in an £18billion boost to the economy.
But Labour condemned the ‘reckless and irresponsible’ proposal and claimed it would increase river pollution and threaten the environment.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/peers-defeat-government-plans-to-build-thousands-more-homes-by-ditching-eu-era-pollution-rules-as-rishi-sunak-blasts-flip-flopping-keir-starmer-for-being-a-blocker-not-a-builder/ar-AA1gFDZw
And this on top of the cladding scandal.
“…few people have asked why so many tower blocks and housing estates in the UK have been clad in recent years. Some have argued that the refurbishments were cosmetic, added to appease private investors by prettifying housing estates. But this is not the main reason for the cladding. In fact, it was added to meet the government’s targets for reducing CO2 emissions.
Just last year, Kensington and Chelsea Council proudly announced the completion of the £10million refurbishment project at Grenfell, which included ‘the installation of insulated exterior cladding’, new boilers and double glazing. The council said that the reason for the project was to ‘enhance energy efficiency and help reduce residents’ living costs’.
Here Kensington and Chelsea Council was following government instructions. As the 2008 Climate Change Act made clear, ‘it is the duty of the secretary of state to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80 per cent lower than the 1990 baseline’. “
https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/06/26/grenfell-clad-in-climate-change-politics/
Many are now trapped in buildings now considered fire traps and facing huge costs to have the cladding removed. They’ve been well and truly forgotten.
Thus far, I’d say Labour, the presumed next party of government, is more in tune with the UN and its demands. The [alleged] Conservatives are in office, but not in power.
I feel a Jackson Pollock coming on….
The Greens and net zero zealots at the Un w0uld like nothing better than to bump us back into the Stone Age.
The poorest of the U.S. poor are already living in tents. Little does anyone know that’s the wave of the future for everyone. Bye-bye, steel and concrete with asphalt, fiberglass or metal roofs. Hello, homes made of “biomass.”
Don’t forget the axiom of the Three Little Pigs
House of Straw is destroyed by wind
House of Sticks is destroyed by stronger wind
House of Bricks withstood the wind but unreinforced brick fell to earthquake…
And the Wolf ate the Pigs
The taller you build Structural Steel and Steel Reinforced Concrete last significantly longer and are much stronger than wood, bamboo and straw (biomass).
The BBC are also in the forefront of the Stone Age retrofitters. Urging the shutdown of the steel industry and the motor industry unless they produce useless EVs requiring mountains of Cu and Li et al. In fact the broadcaster emits so much hot air and ipso facto CO2 that shutting them down would get us to net zero in no time flat
Errrrr….. but you can’t make EVs without steel – can you? The British Bolleaux Corporation does it again…
Mountains of Cu, Li et al (steel and concrete for buildings). Reinforced HC plastics for car bodies.
A variation on “Brave New World”
At least we’re not stranded on a cruise ship in Greenland. Sea level rise was not as great as anticipated.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/cruise-ship-carrying-206-people-runs-aground-remote-part-greenland-2023-09-12/
Sea level rise was not as great thanks to the courage of Martha Stewart
“Martha Stewart left a sour taste in some critics’ mouths with an Instagram post on Tuesday that showed her drinking a cocktail made with ice she suggested was from an iceberg during a cruise around Greenland.
…
the representative said the company never authorized “any invasive acquisition that does not fully respect the polar environment in accordance with our own strict rules and rigorous industry standards.”
“Regardless, we understand this can appear insensitive to the climate crisis and therefore, we will be suspending this practice with immediate effect on all ships in the Swan Hellenic fleet,”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/martha-stewart-cocktail-backlash_n_64ef0c71e4b0fe066b17a606
So, if you do see an iceberg… use it in your drinks to save the planet.
“the representative said the company never authorized “any invasive acquisition that does not fully respect the polar environment…”
This stuff gets crazier by the day!
If I eat the snow in my yard in winter, am I saving the world?
Somenone has to say it: Don’t eat the yellow snow.
You have quoted the motto of the UP of Michigan. It can be found under the mosquito on our flag.
There’s a shortage of icebergs?
Here, children, are the keys to your future home
” timber, & bamboo’”
Yep, great for fire-prone areas
Great for flood areas..
And of course stone requires massive amounts of mining infrastructure..
Seriously… these clowns need to be mentally certified !
Bring back Arkham Asylum !
“” timber, & bamboo’”
Lessons learned long ago are being ignored
The 1667 Rebuilding Act stated: “No man whatsoever shall presume to erect any house or building, whether great or small, but of brick or stone.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36774166
Was the great fire a product of climate change? /sarc
in cities that makes sense …
and you don’t build with timber … you build with lumber and the process to go from timber to lumber is as CO2 intense as any other construction material process … where I live in rural Pa we have built with lumber for the last 75 years … only the foundation gets any concrete … my wife from France was stunned to watch our 2 story extension being build … she kept saying “they just use wood ?” … I guess its mostly stone houses in France even in the countryside …
This mainly concerns the processing of concrete, steel, and aluminium – three sectors responsible for 23 per cent of overall global emissions today – as well as glass and bricks. Priorities should be placed on electrifying production with renewable energy sources, increasing the use of reused and recycled materials, and scaling innovative technologies.
Looks like the Wind & Solar energy sectors are going to be Hardest Hit, since that is what they are made of and most is never recycled.
It reminds me of “The Three Little Pigs”.
With CO2 playing that part of “The Big Bad Wolf” 😉
These people really are fruitcakes.
Yes, they are. And their climate change delusions are scaring the children.
I wonder how many of them could pass a psych evaluation during an involuntary 72 hour hold
Evil fruitcakes and dangerous to the general populace because they seem to be in power worldwide. All of them are worthy of being made to live their lives as they would impose upon the rest of us. Just as an experiment to see how it works out. Remove their fossil fuel intense modes of transportation for starters. Lets see how that works out.
Evil fruitcakes…seem to be in power…
I’m reminded of a story I read a long time ago when the people we consider sane today (probably actually 30 years ago) were considered insane and locked away, while the insane were on the outside and running things.
Seems like we’re almost there.
Sanity is decided by the majority – when the majority are insane, being sane becomes the new insanity.
In fact, that was the premise of the story Richard! Wish I could remember the title.
What can be said other than that the UN is clueless, and knows nothing whatsoever about construction, construction materials, engineering, and could not possibly be more wrong. It’s not even worth a point by point rebuttal.
Next stupidity?
We have to proceed one stupidity at a time.
We have to proceed one stupidity at a time.
That’s going to take millenia…
I’m sure the U.N. will make an announcement any day now, that they’re tearing down their concrete, steel, and glass HQ building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and replacing it with a warren of mud, bamboo, and thatch huts.
No more electrically-powered computer-generated communiqués, either. From now on, they’ll use clay tablets and carrier pigeons.
I think we could do better than that.
The real aim of this UNEP / Yale report is to make clear that the actual intention of these ‘academics’ and UN bureaucrats (and the Billionaire trusts that fund them) is to reduce the population to a few millions. Starting in the West.
My suggestion would be to blow up both the UN and Yale and salt the rubble.
Just a guess, but I bet the founders of the UN never imagined in their wildest dreams the pan world organisation they had founded to help stop wars and conflicts, would one day be advising what grade of building materials people should be forced to use….
Bureaucrats always seek to expand their power. They like telling other people what to do.
They never managed to stop wars and conflicts so they had to do something to “justify” their existance.
They can gave the bamboo from my neighbour’s garden. Despite my extreme efforts to kill it, it’s still growing under the fence and lifting my patio slabs
Try conc nitric acid?
Nuke from orbit?
The largest concrete dome ever built, the Pantheon in Rome, still stands after 2000 years.
While inhabitants of Third World countries try to get away from their primitive dwellings the UNEP thinks we should go back to them. Clearly, these people have gone stark raving mad, lost all connection with reality.
UN? Rubbish – don’t read any more.
The UN ought to be disbanded. It certainly isn’t doing the United States any good.
Either they, as a whole, actually want to be disbanded so are issuing more and more insane diktat’s, or they’ve gone collectively insane.
From the article: “the Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA), under the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), offers solutions to decarbonize the buildings and construction sector”
There is no need to decarbonize this industry or any other.
There is no evidence CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth. No evidence whatsoever. Yet these maniacs keep beating this drum. I guess it pays well to continue to perpetrate these lies about CO2.
Key word is ‘Yale’. What is certain to follow are the natterings of Ivy League nitwits.
Or any other “Ivy League” indoctrination centers. Academics are managing to destroy their own ivory towers with their continued pitters and patters of nothingness. Good. May they all end up on the streets living in cardboard boxes, if they can find any.
Story tip?
Seems our CO2 might by warming up the whole solar system !!
No One Talks About It: Solar System “Climate Change”… Happening Beyond Planet Earth (notrickszone.com)
We have to build a new Paris-equivalent every 5 days using timber instead of concrete and steel? Not content with giving us fire risk from Evs’ Li-ion batteries, these numpties want to increase fire risk in city buildings too?
“Fire safety is not prioritised at all.. and nevertheless, we’re moving at a speed that is extraordinary. And to me… that is just entering a space where we are taking risks blindly.” – https://lclawyers.com.au/mass-timber-high-rises-some-of-the-risk-considerations-within-an-emerging-paradigm/
And then we have to cut down huge numbers of trees. There isn’t anywhere near enough timber coming from the clearings for wind farms. One Paris per week would be something like one complete Black Forest per year. Whole forests cleared – the greens will get very upset indeed about that (if you don’t tell them why you’re doing it). Oh, and of course the felling and milling etc has to be done with wind- and solar-powered electric equipment made using only wind and solar power.
To say it will be a bit tricky is a bit of an understatement.
Forests don’t have to be “cleared” to produce timber. Most timber harvesting comes from thinnings. Some from clearcuts but they grow back quickly in most places. But yes, the greens don’t like it- they never did, despite enjoying their wood homes, wood furniture and tons of paper products. It used to be simply because they didn’t like “murdering” those trees- now it’s because they want to lock up all the forests to save the planet- it’s called “proforestation”. Of course they’ll continue to enjoy their wood homes.
What will be the area of that timber-and-bamboo Paris?
About 100 sq km. The Black Forest is about 60 times that, but not all of it is forested. A plantation forest has up to about 1,500 trees per hectare and is probably a bit more efficient at producing timber then a natural forest. It takes about 1,500 trees to build a hectare of dense and/or multi-storey housing. So a Paris a week is about one Black Forest a year.
In our studios, we take on the major challenges facing architecture and urban design: prioritizing social and environmental justice; integrating natural processes to foster biodiversity, and; transitioning to circular material economies.
Statement from the Yale Center for Ecosystems+Architecture
Is there some connection between social and environmental justice and carbon? Are the Yale Center studios constructed from bamboo and thatch? Will they promote and enable the conversion of failing shopping malls to high schools, senior living spaces and architecture colleges? Of necessity their work will involve abandoning construction regulations designed to minimize earthquake and hurricane damage. Will earthquake-prone areas embrace this?
“Replace ‘concrete & steel’ with ‘stone, timber, & bamboo’”
Presumably the stone referred to is flint – for the tools.
It’s official now. The U.N. wants us to regress back to the Stone Age. We shall replace concrete and steel construction with “stone, timber and bamboo,” elsewhere described as “locally sourced earth,” and “biomass.”
That’s right — use of durable materials will revert to mud and thatch huts.
Of course, the only countries apt to be suckered into this nonsense are guilt-addled Western countries run by Luddites and fetishists. The 3/4ths of the world’s people living in Asia and the Third World will continue to be exempt, or simply ignore the U.N’s dictates, and work their way to the top.
Or as Nobel laureate Bob Dylan sang 60 years ago, “The first one now shall later be last, ’cause the times, they are a-changing.”
Roman concrete still exists on some places….w/o steel reinforcement. On the other hand…Chinese concrete is is not so much….but look at that Chinese wheat production per acre….too bad much of it is under water after the floods.
Published around the same time as mass destruction in Morocco due to “sustainably sourced” unreinforced masonry buildings collapsing in a medium intensity earthquake.
Reinventing the Wheel, Dept.
China upgraded its building codes nearly 50 years ago after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake killed 300,000 people within minutes. Since then, most new construction in China requires steel-reinforced concrete. It’s a big reason China now produces and consumes 8 times more steel and concrete than the U.S.
Western cities used to suffer frequent, catastrophic fires, when their buildings were mostly “biomass” i.e. wood with thatch roofs. As soon as it became feasible to replace fire-prone wood with safer masonry, Western cities have methodically done so ever since.
I can only wonder how far the U.N. hopes to regress before we relearn the lessons. Surely they don’t expect Lahaina, Maui to replace the lost town with grass huts.
The earthquake in Morocco was no larger than the 1989 Loma Prieta “World Series” quake in California. Most of the damage then was due to bad design or construction.
Traditional buildings, poorly maintained, in poor locations. Collapse in an earthquake almost guaranteed
Yurts. They never collapse in earthquakes, and can be moved quickly if a flood threatens. The fires inside are always very small, and have to be tended 24/7 by the women and children.
Yale is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities, organized in 1900 to keep American doctoral candidates in the US rather than going to European schools. Successful in that endeavor they’ve moved on to crowding to the head of the line for public and private research funding. It would be interesting to know the financial relationship between the UN and Yale in this particular situation.
Yes, we’ve made improvements. America’s nitwits used to have to go to Germany to become socialists. Now they can do so at home.
Just let me know when Klaus has his new Bamboo mansion built, mkay?
So can we get permission to cut down General Sherman to help build skyscrapers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_(tree)
Couldn’t give a fig about decarbonifigmentofyourimagination, but if it means going back to classic architecture styles then I’m not opposed. I’d rather have more Empire State buildings and Three Grace’s (Liverpool) than more Shards and Gherkins (London).
A bamboo Empire State building. That’s an idea ..
Nah, the building that ought to be re-built using bamboo and ox dung..
is at 405 Lexington Ave, New York
I wondered when the Carbon Cult was going to get around to demanding we use less steel and concrete; it appears they have given up claims that we will “soon” be able to create green steel using hydrogen.
Concrete and steel are the most produced materials in the world by weight, at about 4 billion and 1.8 billion metric tons respectively each year. Each ton of steel requires slightly more than 0.75 tons of coal to make. Steel is probably the single most useful material human civilization has developed; there is no other available material which can replace it for all uses. Without steel we are living in the 19th century and probably not the best part of it. Take away iron as well (which also requires coal), and that would knock us back another 100 years or so.
Far from “only giving the illusion” of durability, both steel and concrete are extremely durable, which is one of the reasons they have replaced earlier materials. All of the steel and concrete that went into the Hoover Dam (completed 1935) and the Empire State building (1931) and countless other structures is still there. Contrary to Sheila Aggarwal-Khan’s claims, both materials can be largely if not entirely recycled when economic to do so.
In the pre-steel era when the world was using wood and stone, the tallest buildings were gothic cathedrals which topped out at around 130 meters (and this was the spires, not the portion which enclosed the major interior volume), were mostly empty inside, and sometimes took hundreds of years to complete.
Wood-frame structures are limited by the International Building Code to 6 floors or 85 feet; local building codes may impose different limits (Canada allows greater height). In major urban centers with very high land costs, limiting new developments to 6 floors may be cost-prohibitive.
I have an idea; let’s introduce a UN resolution requiring all UN functions to move to buildings made out of “sustainable” stone, timber and bamboo as advocated by Aggarwal-Khan, by 2032. The UNEP group can lead the way.
I could find nothing on using biomass to build structures, especially multistory buildings.
I suspect this is something that was never discussed with a civil engineer to determine the feasibility.
I would be very surprised if after including the emissions associated with heating an older building for the rest of it’s useful life, and particularly the opportunity cost of what else doesn’t happen when money is spent on very expensive retrofits rather than for example better insulation, windows, or cladding for new builds, that they can make this claim of 50-75 less emissions than new construction.
:”Avoid waste through a circular approach: building less by repurposing existing buildings is the most valuable option, generating 50-75 per cent fewer emissions than new construction”
UN Environment Program Press Release of new study with Yale Center for Ecosystems & Agriculture: “Rapid urbanization worldwide means every five days, the world adds buildings equivalent to the size of Paris, with the built environment sector already responsible for 37 percent of global emissions.
Hmm … so are they going to replace “Hiroshima Bombs” with “Paris-sized Bombs”?
I miss the “edit” function. 8-(
A glimpse of such a future.
https://youtu.be/uq7noaMwLfg
Bamboo houses in Florida.
Guess they want to boost the “Climate Change” related death toll numbers.
The present ones aren’t scary enough.
They want to boost the rat, cockroach, and termite numbers, also. Climate change isn’t scary or efficient enough. We need plague.
I would agree proposal from the grand Poohbahs at the UN, but with one caveat.
You first.
When they are willing to live in timber and stone homes of the size they propose, use the public transport they support, and stay in their 15 minute community and refrain from the use of fossil fuels, then I will give their proposals due consideration.
Until then, I will pay as much heed to them as I would a preacher demanding abstinence and monogamy from us while he has a harem of concubines.
And what are they going use to bind their stone houses together?
Rapid urbanization worldwide means every five days, the world adds buildings equivalent to the size of Paris
They simply made that number up. And it’s not very impressive. The area of Paris is .oooo7% of the earth’s land surface. The buildings added are not in one spot so it would be difficult to see this growth even from sophisticated orbital equipment. Well, maybe a Chinese weather balloon could pick it up.
A simple first step towards these ‘stone, timber and bamboo’ objectives would be to construct all wind turbine supports from stone, timber and bamboo.
The UN can take a hike.
The UN don’t hike…
.. they take luxury limousines and private jets.
Note that not one of the little trollettes has come out in defence of this idiocy.
When we see the high and mighty leading by example the great unwashed just might be inspired to follow their example. But even the leaders of the greenies who insist we must not use resources in most cases are wearing polyester clothes (by product of Petroleum), driving an EV car and telling us how clever they are (children working in mines in africa to supply the battery manufacturers), using mobile phones. I could expand upon this but will not.
And what effect willl this have on the existing populace? And on the present infrastructure? This stampede toward utopia is on a collision course with disaster. IMHO, of course.
What else could one expect from the UN: return to a pre-industrial society, and it will save the planet, civilization and anything else worth saving. But who’s listening?
You will return to the Stone Age, and be happy.
All this on the back of an unproven hypothesis that CO2 is the driver of climate. What planet are these people on??
I have been to parties at the Kensington Roof Gardens which actually has a lot of concrete surface. But there is surely a conflict with the idea of rooftop solar.
If world population projections are correct, then housing demand might decline by 2050.
Other factors matter, like increasing square feet per person and shrinking household size – but a little old house in the suburbs should eventually regain feasibility for someone who can tear down flowery wallpaper.