Leading Business and Environmental Groups Urge Action on Buildings and Cities at U.N. Climate Summit
During the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, 40 environmental and business organizations joined forces to urge governments to prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment and increase investment in this sector.
Read the full COP-16 Call to Action.
As delegates work to advance a new global climate change pact at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change conference, 40 environmental and business organizations joined forces to urge governments to prioritize reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment and increase investment in this sector.
Partners in a new broad-based international action network called the Global Leadership in Our Built Environment (GLOBE) Alliance are working together around the world to advocate for sustainable building and infrastructure practices as a key strategy for combating climate change. The GLOBE Alliance involves a partnership by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) together with the World Green Building Council and its members, environmental organizations, and businesses.
The built environment is the sector with the single greatest opportunity for reducing CO2 emissions worldwide, at the lowest cost. However, without action, global emissions from buildings– which account for over a third of total greenhouse gas pollution– are projected to double by 2030. Current Kyoto-era programs such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have failed to take on infrastructure and buildings, leaving little financial flow to developing countries to address the giant polluters and learn to build more efficiently.
Today the GLOBE Alliance called on the international community to invest in the built environment as a leading strategy for reducing emissions by ensuring sustainable building, transport and infrastructure activities are recognized as nationally appropriate mitigation actions and to reform the CDM to accelerate investment, among other principles.
Read the full COP-16 Call to Action.
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