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Joanna Yarrow: Ways To Help Save The Planet

Copenhagen 2009:10,000(ish) words to help save the planet

Day zero: introducing beyond green’s approach to very low-to-no-carbon sustainable developments

Sustainability in the energy/climate era: “A series of great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems”

John Gardner, quoted in Thomas Friedman ‘Hot, Flat & Crowded’ (2008)

The global search for a comprehensive, legally binding international treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol and prevent global warming spiralling out of control and causing climate catastrophe (with temperatures rising far beyond the now irrevocable 2o C to perhaps 6 oC by the end of the century) has landed in Copenhagen. It is, of course, a fine place to hold such an event with its superb streets, other public realm and bike culture. Copenhagen’s actually the kind of place that can help us see how many of the changes we need to make to address global warming are good for cities and great for quality of life.

As a contribution to the debate in what Pulitzer-prize winning author Thomas L. Friedman has called the Energy/Climate Era, here at Beyond Green and our sister company BlueLiving we’ve put our heads together to produce 10 Big Ideas for very low-to-no-carbon sustainable developments.

1. (Not) waiting for Godot: time to get on with it

2. Total Carbon Footprint: more than just building clever stuff

3. How shall we live? from the age of plenty to the age of austerity without returning to caves

4. All in place: creating contexts for sustainable lives

5. Sustaining movement: getting around without running aground

6. Whole life value: places and buildings that learn

7. Eco-Renovation: achieving the win-win of a greener building stock

8. Involve me I understand: it’s all in the process

9. Smart Government and Big Society: the case for both

10. What’s not to like? Celebrating the up-side of down

We’ll publish our thinking on one Big Idea in the coming days and weeks.

In doing so we’re assuming that:

· you know that global CO2 emissions rose 29% between 2000 and 2009 and that the world’s population increased by 800 million during that same short period

· you know that the world’s population is very likely to reach 9 billion by the year 2050, and that people in the emerging economies cause only a small fraction of the CO2 emissions of the average Brit - and that accordingly there will have to be significant ‘contraction and convergence’ between rich and poor nations and regions

· we agree that there is an imperative to reduce CO2emissions from the UK economy , by between 90% and 100% against 1990 levels by 2050

· while the science is far from perfect (and can never be perfect) its central thesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing a rapid and highly dangerous warming of the global climate is highly unlikely to be wrong

· even if they had the appetite, governments can’t magic the changes necessary to achieve the rapid transition to a no carbon economy, so we need to do a lot of stuff ourselves. In time government will tell you to do much more of some things and stop doing lots of other things (regulation); carbon ‘bads’ like the internal combustion engine and coal-fired power stations will be aggressively targeted (carbon taxes) and carbon ‘goods’ like railways, bicycles, solar power and, errm… people heavily supported (less tax/new facilities and resources); if you agreed with the points above this is inevitable - it’s only a matter of time

· the UK land-use planning, place-making, development and regeneration sectors haven’t covered themselves in glory with regard to climate change since it first came to light in the 1980s and therefore some serious strategic re-thinking and urgent, rigorous and concerted ACTION is needed now (and why not if this is what we’re going to be told to do by governments at all levels soon anyway?)

· if government budgets, taxes, sloppy legislation, rules and regulations and inert public authorities get in the way of what you want to do to achieve very low-to-no-carbon places and environments we’ll all get cross, then get organised, speak out, lobby and make a fuss as if our children’s lives depended on it…

So, with all this in mind and knowing how heartily you agree with our assumptions, here’s our list of 10 Big Ideas for very low-to-no-carbon sustainable developments that will prevent catastrophic planetary warming, improve cities, homes and workplaces, strengthen community and enhance quality of life:

1. (Not) waiting for Godot: time to get on with it

Conferences won’t solve this global problem; they can create a compelling framework but unless you want massive, Orwellian government it’s time to get creative, strategic and bold and start taking decisions to rebuild your values, brand and business. No development, major event (not even the Olympics) or even physical renewal and regeneration has a divine right to happen in the Energy/Climate Era; they have to earn the right by taking action to achieve profound carbon reductions, irrespective of the barriers. It’s time to get real, start seizing the opportunities and benefits, and get on with it.

2. The Total Carbon Economy: more than just building clever stuff

Carbon emissions are all too easily dismissed as someone else’s problem that someone else will sort out. But the reality is that moving to a very low carbon economy means doing things very differently. We need to dismiss the myth that we can decarbonise business as usual. We know there’s an imperative to improve efficiency, use less stuff and produce less pollution. In the built environment we’re finally starting to think about embodied carbon. But ultimately, things and buildings don’t use energy and create pollution – people do. It’s time to think cleverly about how the environments we create and re-create shape people’s behavior. Time to take responsibility for the total carbon footprint of the places and developments we create and the lives lived there.

3. How shall we live?: from the age of plenty to the age of austerity without returning to caves

Of course only a small minority of the world’s people have enjoyed the age of plenty. But what’s this new ‘age of austerity’ people keep talking about and what does it mean for us? Are we all going to be living in a cave with the TV switched off? Or are there opportunities for achieving real quality of life in very low-to-no-carbon economies and societies? And how on earth can we communicate and then sell this (in some cases literally) to people?

4. All in place: creating contexts for sustainable lives

There’s no such thing as a ‘sustainable’ building - so much of the built environment’s impact is down to how we use it. If we’re really going to re-shape the way we live we need to stop making ‘developments’ or ‘projects’ using silo policies and partial economics and focus much more on place. Place has seldom, perhaps never, been more important. Successful places in the future will be superbly connected, and yet have distinctive identity, capacity for self-determination and containment, sufficiency, and provide a deeper sense of belonging. Meanwhile the actions we propose to address global warming – in mitigation and adaptation – can in themselves help make places work better.

5. Sustaining movement: getting around without running aground

UK transport is in crisis. Getting around is increasingly difficult and unpleasant, we’re producing ever more carbon en route and meanwhile becoming fatter and less healthy. Our transport policies seem to be in denial on carbon and other pollution, and planners are still determined to build more road capacity to ease congestion (often seeking to compensate for appalling land-use planning) while the evidence shows this has the opposite effect. ‘Natural’ increases in vehicle movements are embedded in government models, and transport policies and practices are rabidly defensive of car parking and at best sceptical and at worst cynical about railways and cycling. So what’s to be done to get us out of this tangle? Can electrification alone really solve all these problems? We think not…

6. Whole-life value: places and buildings that learn

The climate crisis is coinciding with a crisis brought about by decades of throwing up disposable, un-loved and short-lived buildings in what are increasingly becoming non-places and anyplaces. We think that resilient and adaptable places and spaces supported by whole-life financial and broader economic models are the way to go. So what are these places like and what’s the economic and business model that will make them not just possible but the norm?

7. Eco-renovation: achieving the win-win of a greener building stock

We’ve known for years and years that existing housing and building stock has to be refurbished to hit carbon targets. We’ve also known this can achieve significant medium-term cost savings, affordable warmth, terrific job creation and requires less money for new energy generation capacity. But something’s been holding us back – so what will unlock this huge win-win?

8. Involve me, I understand: it’s all in the process

Don’t even think about doing anything we’ve suggested unless you involve stakeholders and people at all levels in these decisions and actions. Tell me, I forget, show me I (may) remember, involve me I (might just) understand. It’s time to go beyond consultation and get people properly involved in demanding and then creating exceptional places.

9. Smart Government and Big Society: the case for both

Political parties need to distinguish themselves from one another somehow. But this is a time like no other, when we need them to act together on a few basics. We aim to show why we’re going to need smart government and a bigger, stronger society - what will that look like and what will they do?

10. What’s not to like? Celebrating the up-side of down

When you’ve made the changes we’re suggesting in pursuit of very low-to-no-carbon places and lives, what will they be like? Perhaps quite a lot better than what we have / endure now? There’s a big upside to the down of climate change and global warming embedded in and released by the action we’re going to take… This really is a series of “great opportunities disguised as insoluble problems”. But will Beyond Green’s best be the enemy of your good? Is this a counsel of perfection? And if it needs to be acted upon as a total system who’s going to make the first move and then what happens? How can we move literally and definitively beyond green?