The latest IPCC climate report offers a "nugget of hope" but architects and designers must "make changes to the way they design" to help avert catastrophic climate change, according to Architects Climate Action Network and other UK climate pressure groups.
The report should "act as a propellant to their efforts to decarbonise," said Joe Giddings of ACAN, while design collective URGE said it "should make designers completely rethink our idea of success".
Architects Declare said "we need rapid system change" to avert disaster.
Every tonne of emissions makes a difference
Released on Monday in preparation for November's COP26 summit, the landmark report found that limiting global warming to the crucial 1.5-degree threshold set out in the Paris Agreement is now virtually impossible. But the report also outlines that "immediate, rapid and large-scale" cuts to greenhouse gas emissions could still help to stabilise global temperatures around this threshold.
This would dramatically reduce the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, compared to a warming of two degrees or more above pre-industrial levels.
Above: every increment of global warming drastically increases annual mean temperatures. Top image: wildfires have already ravaged countries like Turkey this year
The built environment, which is responsible for around 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, will have its own dedicated day at the COP26 conferenc...