This has been a remarkable month. Architecture 2030 has received an enthusiastic reception by the architecture and building community. We have received hundreds of congratulatory emails, extensive press coverage and thousands of visits to our website. As we begin a new year we are encouraged by a recognition among design professionals of their responsibility for both the built and natural environment. Recently, the presidents of 16 of the world's leading architecture institutions signed the "Las Vegas Declaration" calling on the profession to "do all it can to influence a major reduction in the level of carbon emissions that result from the creation and life-cycle of the built environment." In December, 2005 the American Institute of Architects (AIA) adopted the action items called for in the "2030 Challenge" (see below) and is now working to implement them. And just last month, New Mexico became the first state to require that all state funded new buildings and renovations meet a building energy performance standard of 50% less than the national average for that building type.

However, not all the news is good. NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen continues to warn us that climate change is not only happening, but happening faster than anticipated. It appears that we have a small window of opportunity to stabilize and then reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally.

Now more than ever we must join together in the effort to control emissions from the building sector. To accomplish this, today we are issuing the "2030 Challenge". You can join by showing your support and urging local, national, and international architecture, planning, and building design organizations to adopt the challenge and lobby governments at all levels to pass orders and legislation incorporating the measures called for below.

Working together we can design a better future.

A Global Emergency... and a Call to Action!

Recently, it was reported in The New York Times that (it appears) procedures are being put in place at NASA to prevent "the public from fully grasping recent findings regarding climate change". This comes in response to a lecture recently delivered at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco by Dr. James Hansen, NASA's director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In his lecture titled "Is There Time to Avoid 'Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference' With Global Climate?" Dr. Hansen presented two startling conclusions regarding recent research conducted at NASA.

First he presented "evidence indicating that the Earth's climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point". He estimates that if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are not brought under control in the next ten years the Earth would experience "warming of more than 1°C that will make the Earth warmer than it has been in a million years". In a "business-as-usual" scenario, with emissions continuing to increase at about 2% per year, Dr. Hansen stated that the Earth would experience "warming of 2 or 3°C this century and imply changes that constitute practically a different planet".

"[Research] indicate[s] that the earth will be warm enough in less than 150 years (assuming no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions) to melt the Greenland Ice Cap." (6 meter sea level rise) Northeast and Florida coastline areas susceptible to a 6 meter (19.68 feet) sea level rise. (click on image to enlarge) White: Population Centers Red: Sea level rise Source: Weiss and Overpeck, University of Arizona

Second, and even more alarming, he stressed that changes to the planet included not only loss of the Arctic as we know it, but "losses on a much vaster scale due to worldwide rising seas".

As the "Greenland and West Antarctic ice is softened and lubricated by melt-water and as buttressing ice shelves disappear due to a warming ocean, the balance will tip toward ice loss, thus bringing multiple positive feedbacks into play and causing rapid ice sheet disintegration".

He concluded that the Earth's history suggests that with a warming of 2-3°C the new equilibrium sea level will be "of the order of 25 meters (80 feet)" higher than today. He pointed out that real world data suggest substantial ice sheet and sea level change in centuries, not millennia", possibly by as much as several meters per century.

Other scientists have confirmed Dr. Hansen's conclusions. Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Environmental Studies Laboratory at the University of Arizona points out that "the earth will be warm enough in less than 150 years (assuming no reduction in GHG emissions) to melt the Greenland Ice Cap (six meter rise in sea level). This change could also lead to four to six meters of sea level rise at a rate of up to two to five centimeters per year."

The good news from all this is that there is time to act now.

THE "2030 °Challenge"

Slowing the growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions and then reversing it over the next ten years will require immediate action and a concerted global effort. As Architecture 2030 has shown, buildings are the major source of of demand for energy and materials that produce by-product greenhouse gases. Stabilizing emissions in this sector and then reversing them to acceptable levels is key to keeping global warming to approximately a degree centigrade (°C) above pre-industrial levels.

To accomplish this we are expanding the Climate Action Plan called for in the Open Letter, by issuing the "2030 Challenge" asking the global architecture and building community to adopt the following targets:

That all new buildings and developments be designed to use 1/2 the fossil fuel energy they would typically consume (1/2 the country average for that building type).

That at a minimum, an equal amount of existing building area be renovated annually to use 1/2 the amount of fossil fuel energy they are currently consuming (through design, purchase of renewable energy and/or the application of renewable technologies).

That the fossil fuel reduction standard for all new buildings be increased to:

60% in 2010
70% in 2015
80% in 2020
90% in 2025
Carbon-neutral by 2030 (using no fossil fuel GHG emitting energy to operate).

We know these targets are readily achievable and that most buildings can be designed to use only a small amount of energy at little or no additional cost through proper siting, building form, glass properties and location, material selection and by incorporating natural heating, cooling, ventilation, and day-lighting strategies. The additional energy a building would then need to maintain comfort and operate equipment can be supplied by renewable sources such as solar (photovoltaics, hot water heating, etc.), wind, biomass and other viable carbon-free sources.

To meet the "2030 Challenge", we must not only design high-performance and carbonneutral buildings but advocate actions that will require all buildings and developments to meet these targets as well (through building codes, government regulations and legislation).

Architecture 2030 Policy Efforts
At the 2006 AIA Grassroots Convention in Washington D.C., a Fact Sheet, prepared by the AIA and Architecture 2030, titled "Architects and Climate Change", was distributed to all members of Congress. This was an important first step in educating our congressional members about the importance of the building sector in the climate change debate.

Architecture 2030 will continue working with the AIA to bring this important issue to the attention of local and state governments as well.

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