Figure 1.9 Sustainable Development Goals

Therefore, the United Nations (UN), proposed a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future by establishing "The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" , adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015.

In order to collectively and integrally address these issues as humanity the 2030 Agenda is comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) (succeeding the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000), 169 targets with 232 indicators, designed to ensure the future prosperity and coexistence of the humanity and the nature.

Figure 1.9SustainableDevelopment Goals9

The Goal 11 - Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable is addressing the topic of this writing. For this goal several targets are set to be achieved by 2030, among which are:

 to ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums;  to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries;  to reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management  etc.

The Paris Agreement

At the Conference of the Parties - COP 21 in Paris on 12 December 2015 the Paris Agreement was achieved which entered into force on 4 November 2016. It is a highly important legally binding international treaty on climate change, adopted by 196 countries.

The 190 countries that have signed the Paris Agreement, are held responsible for the 93% of the emissions[7].

With the Paris Agreement, countries have agreed to limit warming well below 2°C with a target to 1.5°C. The ongoing manifestations of climate changes, such as melting ice caps, uncommon weather changes, often accompanied by violent storms or fires occur under the present global temperature increase of 1.2°C.

More than 130 countries had set targets or are in the process of setting targets for emissions reduction to net zero by 2050. More than 90 have submitted national action plan for emissions reduction, however their planned combined emissions reductions by 2030 are not enough to achieve the 1.5°C goal[8]. Therefore, sharp emissions cut is an imperative in the following 5 to 10 years in order to keep global warming below target temperature and protect the natural and human environment.

Sharp emissions cut is an imperative in the following 5 to 10 years in order to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

To mitigate the climate impact, the GHG emissions need to be halfed by 2030 and the humanity needs to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5˚C states that if the world reaches net-zero emissions by 2040, the chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C is considerably higher. The sooner the emissions are tackled, the more realistic is the achievement of net zero future. However, in 2019, the construction sector and buildings instead of improving, they had moved further away from the goals set with the Paris Agreement[4].

Therefore, in August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel released a new report, alarming for a Code Red for the Humanity, urging that there is no time for delay and no room for excuses[9]. As IPCC states, the global mean temperature in 2021 is 1.2 °C above the average temperature and the 1.5°C limit is likely to be hit sooner than expected.

The European Grean Deal

In December 2019. the EU adopted the European Green Deal in which the Commission sets out

"a new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use. It also aims to protect, conserve and enhance the EU's natural capital, and protect the health and well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts”. To reach these objectives, “energy efficiency must be prioritised”.

With the European Green Deal, all of the 27 EU Member States committed to making the EU the first climate neutral continent by 2050. To reach these objectives, “energy efficiency must be prioritized” in all sectors and industries.

EU sets out to be the first climate neutral continent by 2050

These ambitious targets are expected to create new opportunities for:

 innovation and investment and jobs,  address energy poverty,  reduce external energy dependency,  improve the health and wellbeing,

Meeting these targets means that renewables should contribute to the energy supply of electricity with 40% by 2030 and 70-85% by 2050, promoting the uptake of renewables. It is estimated that 35 million buildings could be renovated by 2030 while 160.000 additional green jobs could be created in the construction sector by 2030.

The Commission has therefore revised the Energy Efficiency Directive, together with other EU energy and climate rules, to ensure that the new 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emission by at least 55% (compared to 1990) can be met.

The revised directive also requires EU countries to collectively ensure an additional reduction of energy consumption of 9% by 2030 compared to the 2020 reference scenario projections. This 9% additional effort corresponds to the 39% and 36% energy efficiency targets for primary and final energy consumption outlined in the Climate Target Plan, and is measured against updated baseline projections made in 2020.

The proposal nearly doubles the annual energy savings obliging EU countries to achieve new savings each year of 1.5% of final energy consumption (from previous 0.8%) from 2024 to 2030.

The Commission proposes to restore Europe’s forests, soils and wetlands which will increase absorption of CO2 and will make our environment more resilient to climate change.

The EU intends to share these proposals with its international partners at the UN’s COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November 2021 and to stimulate joint global effort for achieving these highly urgent targets.

Net-Zero Emissionsand timeframe

Reaching net-zero emissions means that all human related GHG emissions will be as close to zero. The remaining GHGs should be balanced with carbon removal approaches, such as