Climate Change
Where we were
[Updated 18/11/21 for final outputs]
In December 2020, the government announced plans to cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGE) by at least 68% by 2030 - compared to 1990 levels. Additionally, in April 2021, the government announced that they would accelerate GHGE reduction to 78% of 1990 levels by 2035.
Therefore before COP26, we had two main targets as a nation:
Reduce GHGE by 68% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
Reduce GHGE by 78% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels.
In addition to the above, in June 2019, the UK government announced a target to reduce the UK's net emissions of greenhouse gases by 100% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. The so-called net-zero emitter target. Net zero refers to balancing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. Two routes to achieving net zero work are reducing existing emissions and actively removing greenhouse gases.
Whats new!
The first few days of COP 26 saw a flurry of activity centered around the ‘Leadership’ days with the following agreed:-
Breakthrough Agenda, a 10-year plan to work together to create green jobs and growth globally, making clean technologies and solutions the most affordable, accessible, and attractive option before 2030 – beginning with power, road transport, steel, hydrogen, and agriculture.
Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests & Land Use commits to work collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030, backed by the biggest-ever commitment of public funds for forest conservation and a global roadmap to make 75% of forest commodity supply chains sustainable.
Global Methane Pledge saw over 100 countries committing collectively to reduce global methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
Following on from that initial activity, the following additional measures were agreed:-
Controllers of $130 trillion of the world’s financial assets, i.e. the management of banks, insurers and pension funds etc, have signed up to 2050 net-zero goals, including limiting global warming to 1.5C. No real detail on how that will be achieved, though.
USA-China Agreement - two of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters - pledged to cooperate more over the next decade in areas including methane emissions (see above) and the switch to clean energy.
India sets net zero ambition for 2070 rather than 2050.
The UK pledged £290m to help countries, largely across Asia and the Pacific, better prepare for extreme weather and other potential changes.
The USA hopes to be ‘coal free’ by 2030 - as announced by John Kerry.
Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay, and the UK, sign up to end the sale of diesel and petrol buses and lorries by 2040.
45 Governments, including the UK, pledge urgent action and investment to protect nature and shift to more sustainable ways of farming. With the UK focusing on the “urgent need to reform the way we grow and consume food.”
All in all, the agreements reached at COP26 fall well short of the 1.5C heating target, with new estimates putting the likely impact on the rate of heating at 2.4C by 2100.
Where are we in reduction efforts?
Looking at GHGEs, the make-up of the UK emissions (measured as per the Kyoto Protocol ‘gases’) is as follows:
Carbon Dioxide 80%
Methane 12%
Nitrous Oxide 5%
Fluorinated Gases 3%
Hydrofluorocarbons
Perfluorocarbons
Sulphur Hexafluoride
Nitrogen Trifluoride
Getting final figures for any particular year takes time - for example, the 2019 figures were only finalised in February 2021.
In 2019, net territorial emissions in the UK of the basket of seven greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol were estimated to be 454.8 MtCO2e, a decrease of 2.8% compared to the 2018 figure of 468.1 million tonnes and 43.8% lower than they were in 1990. Carbon dioxide made up around 80% of the 2019 total. Therefore we are some way to achieving the 68% GHGE reduction by 2030. But a lot of work is still required.
[GHGE is measured in 'million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent' (MtCO2e).]
The nation’s challenge
In summary, our current targets (as of 3/11/21) as a nation are:-
reduce GHGE by 68% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
reduce GHGE by 78% by 2035, compared to 1990 levels.
reduce the UK's net emissions of greenhouse gases by 100% relative to 1990 levels by 2050
participate in the Breakthrough Agenda - a 10-year plan to work together to create green jobs and growth globally by 2030
reduce global methane emissions by 30% by 2030 (we assume that this will transfer to a UK target of 30% of our methane production - as of 2019, sitting at 12% of GHGE)
commitment to work collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 (UK impact to be determined)
make at least 75% of commodity forest supply chains sustainable.
How much does the construction sector contribute?
Well - it’s not straightforward!
For purposes of reporting, the UK Government allocates GHGE into sectors known as National Communication (NC) sectors as follows:
Energy Supply
Business
Transport
Public
Residential
Agriculture
Industrial Processes
Land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF)
Waste Management
The Construction sector is not explicitly represented in the NC sectors but is diffuse across several. Therefore obtaining exact figures for the Construction sector is difficult.
In one 2019 UN report (2019 Global Status Report for Building and Construction), the buildings and construction sector was said to have accounted for 36% of final energy use and 39% of energy and process-related CO2 emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products such as steel, cement, and glass.
Looking specifically at the UK, across the NC sectors the UK's Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that its four largest emitters are vehicles (23% of the total), buildings (19%), industry (13%), and power generation (10%). Again, the construction is diffuse and not detailed.
Helpfully, the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) estimates that in relation to a new build construction project, the relevant carbon footprint comprises the following activities:
55% products
10% transport
20% construction
15% other.
Therefore, the opportunity to reduce GHGE would reside in tackling the manufacture or selection of products for incorporation in construction projects and the construction process itself. Together these represent 75% of the existing carbon footprint activities.
So what’s next, and where do we go from here?
What is clear is that we need a national strategy for GHGE reduction in the construction sector. Leaving it up to individual clients and developers to set their own targets will not cohesively thrust us toward meeting 2030, 2035, or 2050 targets. Also, education and training are needed to raise awareness of our responsibility to reduce GHGEs and provide roadmaps for doing so.
The key focus areas that we could look at are:
cease the proclivity for over-engineering structures - one study found that in a sample of steel-framed buildings in the UK, steel beams were being used at less than their actual loading capacity by 50%.
review of building regulations to provide a framework for GHGE reductions - simply by following code.
the setting of progressive targets for reducing steel, cement, and glass use (the three largest contributors of GHGE in their manufacturing process)
designing buildings to be as efficient as possible so that post-construction running and maintenance costs and GHGE are as low as possible.
carefully assessing the impact - both social and climate, on our decisions to buy (or not) construction products from countries whose ambitions for CO2 reduction fall significantly short of that required to meet the 1.5C warming limit.
The way forward is unclear - the government, or sector leaders, need to illuminate our path to meeting our obligations. That said - each of us has our own individual responsibility to act now in reducing GHGE.