A CO2 budget to stay below 2ºC

Three of our academic members have produced a report that addresses the question of what the implications are for the built environment to keep climate warming well below 2 degrees.

The report (attached) is the beginning of a project that will collect explorations in CO2 emissions from iiSBE members. It is not about politics, or economics, but just an exploration of the remaining the CO2 budget (which is now below 800 Gt CO2-e) that remains to keep us below the critical threshold of 2ºC,, and what can be done to prepare the built environment for a very low on-going CO2 operational mode.

The critical context is that we have to invest in renewable energy generation, to retrofit houses, and to house two billion more people in the next decades. How does this turn out for operational energy use as well as embodied energy? And what about household CO2 budgets?

Three initial explorations in this area of research have been made by the launching group, who include Ronald Rovers, Thomas Lützkendorf and Guillaume Habert. The report is also found on a dedicated website for the project: http://www.buildingscarbonbudget.org.

We invite all iiSBE members to add their own explorations to the collection, so that we get a compendium of insights that will help illustrate and visualize the huge task ahead of us. It can also help to decide later on the best strategies forward. The report and website include guidelines for contributions.

We hope many will contribute, the topic is important enough to put in some work!

Ronald Rovers

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iiSBE report Staying below 2ºC 15Apr17.pdf2.34 MB