4.2 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Professor Tadj Oreszczyn and Mike Davies, University College London, Energy Institute,
While the impacts of climate change are increasing, carbon emissions continue to rise and the UN Emissions Gap Report45 has highlighted that time is running out to achieve a below 2°C world, and so individuals, countries and regions are declaring a climate emergency. In an emergency, we need to radically change our behaviour, this requires bold leadership to clearly articulate what must be delivered in a limited timescale and with limited resources. It probably requires increased dependency on regulations which have been shown to deliver urban change quicker than other policy and market instruments. Yet this survey highlights that in many parts of the Commonwealth which are rapidly urbanising, eg Africa, there are no regulations to develop the near to zero carbon emitting buildings required. Nor, are many of the developed countries, such as the UK, that have the capacity and resources leading the way by developing regulations that clearly show new buildings can be very low energy consuming despite demonstration buildings having been developed over the last 50 years. This report very clearly demonstrates the important role that buildings and urbanisation in Commonwealth countries need to play both in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change, plus the massive gap in capacity which exists to tackle the climate emergency that we are facing.
4.3 HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Dr David Howard, Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development, University of Oxford. Co-Director, Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, Kellogg College, Oxford Developing and building better cities is essential to achieve sustainable levels of health and well- being at local and global levels. The physical built environment is critical to urban living conditions, where access to safe drinking water, sanitation and drainage are vital for the health of concentrated human populations: one third of the world’s population does not have access to improved sanitation, and 775,000 or 1.4% of global deaths were due to unsafe urban sanitation in 2017. There is a continuing lack of professional capacity to maintain and generate appropriate built environments and urban infrastructure in many of the Commonwealth countries, which are rapidly urbanising. With significant urban floorspace and demographic growth expected over the next sixty years, Commonwealth countries remain highly vulnerable not only to the challenges of urbanisation, but to the extreme risks of climate change impact on health issues. Four main chronic, non-communicable diseases account for 60% of global morbidity and mortality: diabetes, respiratory disease, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. These diseases are a global crisis and still require a global response, despite affordable and cost-effective preventive measures being readily available. These measures can most effectively and most rapidly be applied in urban areas, a core component being to create a healthy built environment.
45 https://www.unep-wcmc.org/news/2019-emissions-gap-report
Effective urban planning and design improves living conditions together with access to health and welfare services while moderating exposure to unhealthy environments. The density of the urban environment, in terms of buildings and people, continues to raise both positive and negative consequences for everyday city living. High densities have historically been seen as the cause of poor health, whereas increased density, when combined with mixed land use urban neighbourhoods, are regarded as a core component of sustainable urbanism, countering decades of urban sprawl. Urban density matters and will play an increasingly central role in the future economic, social, political and biophysical state of Commonwealth cities and their populations. Enhancing the capacity and capability of built environment professionals is key to addressing the relationships between health, well-being and the urban environment.
Survey of the Built Environment Professions in the Commonwealth
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