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Watch Sir David Attenborough's powerful speech to leaders at COP26

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20% o f homes to be in timber in Amsterdam  from 2025

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20% o f homes to be in timber in Amsterdam  from 2025

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https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/amsterdam-new-buildings-20-per-cent-timber/?fbclid=IwAR33MkQq3IY06Si_RBEcxY2yF-AKwz8RJW5K49zkOeyK1azPmkYvGBhzN-8

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The city of Amsterdam has mandated that 20 per cent of all new housing projects in the Dutch capital must be constructed with wood or other biobased materials from 2025.

The agreement, which is named the Green Deal Timber Construction, has been signed by all 32 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) region.

Increasing the use of timber in the city's construction projects is hoped to reduce reliance on steel and concrete - materials that create large amounts of carbon dioxide during production.

In turn, this is expected to help the Dutch capital meet its goal of "climate neutrality", or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, by 2050.
Mandate encourages all biomaterials
The Green Deal Timber Construction was signed during the MRA Sustainability Summit 2021 in October. However, it will not be implemented until 2025.

As an alternative to timber construction, the deal also allows for 20 per cent of all new homes to be constructed with other biobased materials - materials that are derived from biodegradable living matter - such as hemp or cork.

To meet the agreement and qualify as a timber building, a detached house would have to be constructed with at least 80 per cent timber or biobased materials. For multistorey housing up to 10 storeys, this is reduced to 65 per cent, while multistoreey housing over 10 storeys must contain at least 50 per cent.

According to the Amsterdam Institute of Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute), which is supporting the implementation of the Green Deal Timber Construction, the move is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the city by approximately 220,000 tonnes a year. This is equivalent to the average emissions of 22,000 homes, it said.

Nitrogen emissions are also expected to be significantly reduced.

French public buildings to be built with 50 per cent wood

Globally, the built environment is currently responsible for around 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce this figure, many architects around the world are turning to timber for construction, due to the material's sustainability credentials.

One of the biggest benefits of timber is that it can sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and store it within a building, offsetting the carbon emissions generated by a building over its lifespan.

"Although the use of abiotic materials in construction has literally taken us to great heights, these materials have a major impact on the environment," explained Pablo van der Lugt, a research fellow at AMS Institute.

"The latest generation of mass timber products can replace these materials one-to-one, without harming the environment," he added. "Moreover, they actually act as huge carbon sinks."
Deal could help Amsterdam become circular
Amsterdam is not the only city to have introduced legislation that encourages the use of biomaterials. In New York, the city council has approved the use of mass timber for the construction of buildings of up to 25.9 metres tall.

In 2020, the French government agreed that all new public buildings in the country must be built from at least 50 per cent timber or other natural materials by 2022.

To support the Green Deal Timber Construction agreement, sites for new construction projects will be designated across Amsterdam.

The city will also invest in the research and development of timber and biobased materials for construction, as well as ​​companies committed to helping the city achieve its goals.

While helping Amsterdam to become carbon neutral, ​​the deal also supports the city's goal of achieving a circular economy because timber and other biomaterials are easily reused and recycled.

UK rules on building with timber are a "policy car crash" says Andrew Waugh

A circular economy is an economic model that minimises consumption and waste and prioritises the continual reuse of materials.

"Biobased materials, in particular the latest generation of mass timber products, are part of the solution to make our city climate-neutral and truly circular," explained Arjan van Timmeren, professor at the AMS Institute.

In the UK, the use of timber is currently hindered by new government legislation that makes it difficult for architects to specify the material. The rules, introduced in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster, were described by timber architecture expert Andrew Waugh as a "policy car crash".

Update 03/11/21: this story was updated to make clear that the agreement requires 20 per cent of all new housing projects in Amsterdam to be constructed from timber, rather than all new individual housing projects to be constructed from at least 20 per cent timber.
The photo of Rhythm House in Amsterdam is by Norbert Wunderling.

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Twenty per cent of new homes in Amsterdam to be constructed from timber

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The city of Amsterdam has mandated that 20 per cent of all new housing projects in the Dutch capital must be constructed with wood or other biobased materials from 2025. The agreement, which is named the Green Deal Timber Construction, has been signed by all 32 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) region.

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Image: Urpo Minkkinen

Heavy rainfall, flooding and rising volumes of water are expected to pour over Finland in the next 30 years, according to the most recent report of the Finnish Climate Change Panel.

The new report published on Thursday painted a fuller picture of the impact climate change will have on the whole of Finland, outlining the severity of the expected effects by province.

The report further emphasised the urgency of adaptation measures alongside emission reductions and elevated the risk of severe flooding above that posed by heat waves, droughts or storms.

Increased rainfall will be observed mainly between October and February, according toresearch professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Head of Climate Change Impact Research, Hilppa Gregow.

"We can confidently deduce heavier rainfall from the analyses. Wind, for example, does not seem to pose as a growing risk as rain does," Gregow said.

Southwest and North of Finland to see worst flooding

Some areas will be affected by the increased rainfall worse than others. According to the latest report, Pori has the greatest flood risk in Finland, with Rovaniemi coming second.

The southern coast of Finland and Kymenlaakso will have to battle with both heavy rains and sea floods which could see "drinking water and heating in those areas severely compromised," Gregow said.

In Lapland, increasing amounts of snow will also cause additional flooding when it melts in spring. This is on top of the heavier rains during the rest of the year.

"All urban areas should be carefully assessed for risks so that they do not end up in the same state as cities in Germany last summer," Gregow warned.

Adaptation measures needed now, report warns

The Finnish Climate Change Panel report further stressed that adaptation measures should already be well underway, adding that Finland should expect more severe effects resulting from the changing climate.

"Our soil is not used to having year-round rainfall. We haven't really witnessed this in the past," Gregow said.

According to the report, the impact of extreme weather events like flooding could cause damage worth approximately four million euros per year in Helsinki and Espoo alone. Without action, annual climate-related damages could grow between 16 and 120 percent by 2050 and even more by 2100.

A key problem is heavier rainfall driven by the changing climate. Over the next ten years, rainfall is projected to grow by a further two to four percent, FMI meteorologist Gregow said.

"If we go even further, the increase in rainfall will be 8-9% per year. That's five times more than we've seen so far," she told Yle.

The summer floods in Germany were caused by rainfall six times the average.

"And there were shocking disasters. That's just the beginning, we haven't seen anything yet," Gregow added.
Story continues after photo.

Image: Timo Metsäjoki / Yle

Sirkku Juhola, Professor at the University of Helsinki and member of the Climate Panel, seconds Gregow's concerns over Finland's lack of preparation.

"Provincial adaptation and risk assessment are in very premature stages. There are no systematic risk assessments in any province," Juhola said.

According to Juhola, large infrastructure projects should do more to take into account the possible future scenarios of climate change or risk becoming unusable by the end of the century.

Juhola also urged people to come up with their own contingency plans for adapting to climate change and minimising any negative social and economic consequences.

"Adaptation is the responsibility of the property owner. If one owns properties or forest areas that are prone to direct impact, they should check what types of insurance are available. As for the risk posed by sudden floods, one should think about what to do if water starts coming in through the door," Juhola explained.

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Flooding in Finland is getting worse, new climate report says

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Heavy rainfall, flooding and rising volumes of water are expected to pour over Finland in the next 30 years, according to the most recent report of the Finnish Climate Change Panel. The new report published on Thursday painted a fuller picture of the impact climate change will have on the whole of Finland, outlining the severity of the expected effects by province.

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Architecture schools must prioritise teaching students net-zero design skills to effectively prepare them for future work, says Anthropocene Architecture School founder Scott McAulay.

Speaking to Dezeen, McAulay said that if the industry is to help alleviate climate change, emerging architects must be taught how to eliminate carbon emissions from the built environment, which is responsible for around 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

A failure to do this so far has left a "massive knowledge gap in the industry" in which many architects practice sustainability as a method of damage control, he explained.

"We need to have a really frank conversation about the way we've been practising sustainability as a whole, it has become a buzzword and it is effectively just damage control," McAulay told Dezeen.

"At this point, it needs to be entirely normal to start an architecture degree and to be taught in a context of a climate emergency where we have been told that we should be net-zero and curbing carbon emissions as fast as possible," he continued.

"If [the design of a building] is not basically near net-zero, it's already outdated, it's already archaic," he explained. "It's not performing as we know it needs to, so that has to be the established standard."
"Everything has to change"
Net-zero carbon buildings are designed to eliminate all possible emissions in both embodied carbon, which are emissions caused by the construction supply chain, and operational carbon, which are emissions caused by the building's use. Any remaining emissions must be offset using schemes that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

In 2019, the Royal Institute of British Architects launched a voluntary challenge to help architects design net-zero carbon buildings but less than six per cent of UK studios have signed up.

According to UN champion Nigel Topping, architects are also "one of the least well-represented businesses" in the UN initiative to get companies to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050.

However, the latest IPCC report said that "immediate, rapid and large-scale" cuts to greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide are what is required to ​​tackle human-induced climate change and help to stabilise global temperatures.

"If you understand the gravity of that report, and you understand what it says about buildings, then you know everything has to change," McAulay reflected.
Climate literacy "has to be rooted"
In addition to teaching zero-carbon design skills, McAulay explained that a wider overhaul of architectural curricula is required to make emerging architects "climate literate".

"Climate literacy means understanding that buildings have a significant impact upon climate change," he explained. "That has to be rooted."

"Architects need substantive knowledge and skills to address climate change"

This should start with teaching architecture students that "when you work with any building, or you design any building, it goes into an existing ecosystem".

But skills such as landscaping and retrofitting must also be learned, he said, alongside gaining hands-on building experience with sustainable materials such as hempcrete.

He said an example of this is at the Weitzman School of Design's McHarg Centre, where courses are built on the guidelines of the Green New Deal - a proposal for a government-led remodel of the US economy to address climate change by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Edward Markey.
Anthropocene Architecture School provides support
While individual institutions beginning to teach climate literacy is a positive step, McAulay said that legislation and collaboration between different schools are needed for it to be truly effective.

"To not educate students about climate change and sustainability is negligent and verges on denialism," he explained.

"We definitely need [the teaching of climate literacy] to be in legislation, it can't just be left to each individual institution that feels like it," McAulay continued.

"We are yet to see a united collaborative effort, freely sharing learnings and resources, between as many institutions as we need to build the critical mass to catalyse the necessary, transformative change."

Students "let down by their architectural education" says climate action group

However, recognising that changes in legislation may not happen at the required speed, McAulay is now taking educating emerging architects into his own hands as part of the Anthropocene Architecture School (AAS) - a decentralised architecture organisation that he founded in 2019.

The AAS offers a mix of online resources and workshops that shed light on the changes needed in the industry and the existing resources available to do so. They are available to schools of architecture and their students, as well as tutors, practitioners and the public.

So far this has seen him conduct lectures for staff and students at 15 universities in the UK, the Netherlands and Canada. More recently, he collaborated with students from Manchester School of Architecture as part of its annual programme of student-led live projects, during which they developed replicable Climate Literacy toolkits.
Architecture students feel let down by education
McAulay is far from alone in his concerns about the lack of climate literacy in education. A recent survey conducted by the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) revealed that 76.9 per cent of students do not feel their course is properly preparing them for future work.

It also found that 88.5 per cent of students wanted to be tested on their ability to design net-zero buildings, but that "aesthetics are valued more than sustainable design" at their institution.

ACAN's education coordinator Megan Coe told Dezeen that "students feel they are currently being let down by their architectural education".

Achieving net-zero carbon architecture and is one of the topics that Dezeen has explored in its recent editorial series called Carbon revolution. The series also explored ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere through direct air capture and natural processes such as mineral carbonation.

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Failure to teach net-zero architecture skills "is negligent and verges on denialism" says Anthropocene Architecture School founder

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Architecture schools must prioritise teaching students net-zero design skills to effectively prepare them for future work, says Anthropocene Architecture School founder Scott McAulay. Speaking to Dezeen, McAulay said that if the industry is to help alleviate climate change, emerging architects must be taught how to eliminate carbon emissions from the built environment, which is responsible for around 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

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Helsingin kaupungin järjestämä Verkkosaaren pohjoisosan Mitte-nimisen korttelin 10656 asuntotonttien 1 ja 2 laatukilpailu päättyi keväällä 2021.

- Idea energiatehokkuuteen liittyvästä tontinluovutuskilpailusta syntyi kaupungin ympäristöpalveluiden toimesta jo muutama vuosi sitten osana Fiksu Kalasatama -hanketta. Kilpailun kohteeksi valikoitui siten Verkkosaaren pohjoisosan Mitte-kortteli. Kilpailun teemaa laajennettiin käsittämään energiatehokkuuden lisäksi myös vähähiilisyys ja vehreys, kertoo Kalasataman projektinjohtaja Hannu Asikainen.

Kilpailun tavoitteena oli tuottaa arkkitehtonisesti korkeatasoinen viherkortteli, josta muodostuu kaupunkikuvallisesti omaleimainen ja toteutuskelpoinen asuin- ja liikerakentamisen kokonaisuus. Samalla kilpailussa etsittiin kilpailualueen asuinkerrostalotonteille toteuttajaa ja suunnittelijaa.

- Avoimeen laatukilpailuun toimitettiin määräaikaan mennessä 12 hyväksyttyä ja korkeatasoista ehdotusta, joten kilpailun voidaan todeta onnistuneen erinomaisesti ja edistävän Hiilineutraali Helsinki 2035 -tavoitteen saavuttamista, arvioi johtava kiinteistölakimies Martti Tallila.

- Tällä kilpailulla on suuri merkitys alalle. Korkealaatuiset ehdotukset osoittavat, että suomalainen rakennussektori on jo nyt kykenevä toteuttamaan vähähiilisiä ratkaisuja esteettisesti ja taloudellisesti kestävällä tavalla. Ehdotusten monet energiatehokkaat ja vähähiiliset ratkaisut ovat valmiita otettavaksi käyttöön heti mitä erilaisimmissa rakennushankkeissa, toteaa kilpailussa asiantuntijana toiminut tiimipäällikkö Jessica Karhu Rakennustiedosta.
Mitte-korttelista rakennetaan energiatehokas
Voittajaksi esitettävässä ehdotuksessa tontin 1 E-luku on 32 kWh E/m², a ja tontin 2 E-luku on 33 kWh E /m², a. Rakentamismääräykset täyttävän, yli kolmikerroksisen asuinkerrostalon E-luku saa olla suurimmillaan 90 kWh E/m², a. Verrattuna normaaliin rakentamiseen, voittajaehdokkaan E-luku on tästä vain noin kolmannes eli ehdotetut rakennukset ovat erittäin energiatehokkaita. Ehdotuksessa esitetyt energiasäästöratkaisut ovat yleisesti käytössä olevalla tekniikalla toteutettavissa.

Ehdotuksen E-luku alittaa myös vaaditun A-luokan raja-arvon 75 kWh E /m² kirkkaasti ja on toteutuessaan yksi harvoista Suomessa rakennetuista alle 40 kWh E /m² E-luvun omaavista asuinkerrostaloista. Onnistuminen tässä on monen tekijän summa - kohteessa on mietitty, miten energiaomavaraisuus olisi saavutettavissa sekä sovellettu ennakkoluulottomasti kaikkia hukkaenergian talteenottomahdollisuuksia.

Mitte-korttelin lämmöntuotanto tapahtuu lähes omavaraisesti lämpöpumppujärjestelmällä, johon liittyy noin 1,5 kilometriä syvä geoterminen kaivo. Geotermisen porakaivon lisäksi lämpöpumppujärjestelmä saa syötteensä muun muassa kiinteistössä syntyvästä hukkaenergiasta, ulkoilmasta sekä jätevedestä. Varastoitunutta energiaa voidaan hyödyntää myös naapurikortteleiden lämmitystarpeissa. Lämpöpumppujen tarvitsemaa sähköä tuotetaan korttelissa aurinkosähköjärjestelmällä.

- Ratkaisut ovat hyödynnettävissä myös muissa hankkeissa. Ennen hankkeeseen ryhtymistä geotermisten kaivojen suunnittelu vaatii toki maaperätutkimuksia. Yhteistyö Helenin kanssa geotermisen ylijäämälämmön saamiseksi kaupungin verkkoon on varmasti kaikkia hyödyttävä asia, pohtii Jessica Karhu.

Voittajaksi esitettävän kilpailuehdotuksen hiilijalanjälki 50 vuoden ajalle laskettuna on 423 kg CO2-ekv./m2. Ehdotuksen hiilijalanjälki on 25 % kilpailuehdotusten keskiarvoa pienempi ja ympäristöministeriön tänä vuonna valmistuneen Carbon Footprint Limits for Common Building Types -raportin mukaan materiaalipäästöt A1-A3 ovat keskiarvoa noin 20 % pienemmät.

- Ehdotuksessa on otettu huomioon kokonaisuus, vähennetty energian päästöjä, optimoitu materiaalien kulutusta ja valittu vähäpäästöisempiä materiaaleja, kertoo kilpailussa asiantuntijana toiminut Project Manager Sara Tikka One Click LCA:sta.

Rakennuksen osalta suurimmat päästöt tulevat rakennusmateriaalien valmistuksesta. Suunnitelmassa on kuitenkin käytetty teknologiaa, jonka ansiosta runkoon ja perustuksiin kuluu noin puolet vähemmän massaa, mikä vähentää betonin määrää ja näin ollen myös päästöjä huomattavasti. Kaikilta osin ehdotuksessa on pyritty optimoimaan niin materiaalien kulutusta, kuin näiden päästöjäkin. Käytön aikaisia päästöjä on pyritty pienentämään hyvällä energiatehokkuudella, maalämmöllä sekä aurinkopaneelien käytöllä.
Kortteliin lähes 200 asuntoa, puistomainen sisäpiha ja robottiparkki
Kilpailun arviointiryhmän mukaan "Grün in der Mitte" -ehdotuksen arkkitehtoniset elementit palvelevat tarkoitustaan ja ovat hyvin perusteltuja.

- Voittajaksi esitettävässä ehdotuksessa kilpailun tavoitteet on ymmärretty oivallisesti ja onnistuttu ottamaan ne erinomaisesti osaksi arkkitehtuuria ja suunnitteluratkaisuja. Kilpailuehdotuksessa ei ole mitään ylimääräistä tai karsittavissa olevaa ja työ muodostaa näin erinomaisen lähtökohdan jatkosuunnittelulle ja rakentamiselle, kuvaa arviointiryhmän puheenjohtaja, tiimipäällikkö ja arkkitehti Matti Kaijansinkko.

Ehdotuksen asuntoratkaisut ovat toimivia - korttelin runkorakenne mahdollistaa muuntojoustavuuden tarjoten sopivia asuntoja erilaisille elämäntilanteille. Läpitalon asuntoja on paljon ja ne ovat valoisia. Täydentävissä rakenteissa ja sisätilojen näkyvissä pinnoissa on käytetty runsaasti puuta.

Ehdotus pitää sisällään puistomaisen, maanvaraisen sisäpihan, jonka toteuttamisen mahdollistaa suunnitelmassa esitetty robottiparkki. Robottiparkissa automatisoitu pysäköintijärjestelmä hoitaa ajoneuvon pysäköinnin varsinaiselle pysäköintipaikalle, eikä kuljettajan tarvitse kuin ajaa auto sisäänkäynnin kohdalle. Suunnitelmassa on panostettu myös viherkertoimeen: luonnon monimuotoisuus, kierrätysmateriaalien käyttö sekä veden kierrätys on kattavasti huomioitu.

Korttelin kahdella tontilla on asuinrakennusoikeutta yhteensä 17 000 kerrosneliömetriä sekä liiketilaa yhteensä 500 kerrosneliömetriä. Tonteille rakennetaan lähes 200 asuntoa yli 300 asukkaalle. Ensimmäiselle tontille tulee sääntelemättömiä vapaarahoitteisia asuntoja niin, että toteutettavasta asuinrakennusoikeudesta enintään puolet saa olla vuokra-asuntoja. Lisäksi tontille tulee liiketilaa. Toiselle tontille rakennetaan hitas-omistusasuntoja.

Kaupunkiympäristölautakunnan ratkaistua kilpailun ja kaupunginvaltuuston hyväksyttyä tonttien myynti- ja vuokrausperiaatteet kaupunki allekirjoittaa voittajan kanssa toteuttamissopimuksen ja kiinteistökaupan esisopimuksen. Rakentaminen korttelissa alkaa vuonna 2023. Toteutussopimuksessa kaupunki edellyttää, että rakennukset valmistuvat viimeistään vuonna 2026.

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Verkkosaareen rakennetaan vähähiilinen ja erittäin energiatehokas kortteli - kilpailulla suuri merkitys rakennusalalle | Helsingin kaupunki, kaupunkiympäristön toimiala

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Helsingin kaupungin järjestämä Verkkosaaren pohjoisosan Mitte-nimisen korttelin 10656 asuntotonttien 1 ja 2 laatukilpailu päättyi keväällä 2021. - Idea energiatehokkuuteen liittyvästä tontinluovutuskilpailusta syntyi kaupungin ympäristöpalveluiden toimesta jo muutama vuosi sitten osana Fiksu Kalasatama -hanketta. Kilpailun kohteeksi valikoitui siten Verkkosaaren pohjoisosan Mitte-kortteli. Kilpailun teemaa laajennettiin käsittämään energiatehokkuuden lisäksi myös vähähiilisyys ja vehreys, kertoo Kalasataman projektinjohtaja Hannu Asikainen.

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"Ecological sustainability forms the basis on which economic and social sustainability is built." 

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"Ecological sustainability forms the basis on which economic and social sustainability is built." 

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https://www.mustread.fi/artikkelit/kestava-metsatalous-edellyttaa-talouden-mittareiden-laajentamista-kansalaisten-ja-metsanomistajien-tahdon-kuulemista-seka-kestavyyden-luontoperustan-tunnustamista/

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Suomalainen keskustelu metsätaloudesta tarkastelee asiaa liian yksipuolisesta näkökulmasta. Perinteinen tapa ymmärtää taloudellinen kestävyys tarkoittaa, että metsätalouden elinvoimaisuus, tuottavuus ja kannattavuus säilyvät pitkällä aikavälillä. Keskeiset mittarit taloudelliselle kestävyydelle ovat olleet poistuman (hakkuut ja luonnonpoistuma) ja kasvun suhde, sekä hakkuiden suhde suurimpaan puuntuotannollisesti kestävään hakkuumäärään.

Taloudellisilla mittareilla tarkasteltuna suomalainen metsätalous on pääsääntöisesti ollut kestävää, vaikka viime vuosina erityisesti Kaakkois-Suomessa hakkuiden määrä on ylittänyt puuntuotannollisen kestävyyden tason.

Taloudellisen kestävyyden mittaaminen puubiomassan riittävyydellä on kuitenkin kapea tulokulma jopa talouden itsensä näkökulmasta.

Metsätaloutemme tuottama lisäarvo on laskenut, kun esimerkiksi jalostusarvoltaan korkeampien paperilaatujen kysyntä on vähentynyt. Hyvinvointinäkökulmasta metsäsektorin ensisijainen intressi olisikin löytää uusia korkean jalostusarvon tuotteita pikemminkin kuin pyrkiä maksimoimaan tuotettu tai kulutettu puubiomassa.

Biomassakeskeinen lähestymistapa sivuuttaa kaikki muut metsien käyttötavat ja käyttäjät sekä heidän taloudelliset intressinsä. Emme tarkkaan tiedä, kuinka paljon esimerkiksi virkistyskäytön, terveyden tai matkailun taloudellisia arvoja menetetään, kun talouden katse kohdistetaan ainoastaan puubiomassaan. Talouden mittarit kaipaavat lisätyökaluja.

Tavoitteena aito kokonaiskestävyys

Kansallinen metsästrategia asettaa metsätalouden kestävyyden keskeiseksi tavoitteekseen. Strategian mukaan huolehtimalla kestävyyden eri osa-alueista voidaan turvata nykyisten ja tulevien sukupolvien mahdollisuudet hyödyntää metsiä hyvinvoinnin lähteenä. Kestävyyden eri ulottuvuuksien - esimerkiksi taloudellisen ja ekologisen kestävyyden - yhteensovittaminen on siis metsäpolitiikan ensisijainen haaste.

Viimeaikainen keskustelu metsäkysymyksistä onkin osoittanut kokonaiskestävyyden olevan yhteisesti tunnustettu tavoite. Yhteinen ymmärrys ei kuitenkaan johda haluttuun tulokseen, jos kokonaiskestävyyden nimissä tehdään tulkintoja, joilla ei ole tieteellistä perustaa.

YK:n kestävän kehityksen tavoiteohjelma Agenda 2030 ja sen toimeenpanoa tukemaan tilattu riippumaton asiantuntijaryhmän arviointi (GSDR19) tuovat selkeästi esille, että luonnonjärjestelmien turvaaminen ja luonnonvarojen käytön kestävyys ovat sosiaalisen ja taloudellisen kestävyyden perusta.

Maapallo ja sen luonto asettavat ekologiset reunaehdot joiden puitteissa talous ja yhteiskunnat on järjestettävä. Ekologinen kestävyys siis muodostaa perustan, jonka päälle taloudellinen ja sosiaalinen kestävyys rakentuvat. Kestävyyden luontoperusta ei ole vaihdettavissa tai neuvoteltavissa.

Kestävän talouden luontoperustaisuus tarkoittaa, että luonnon monimuotoisuus on keskeinen pääoman laji, jonka säilymisestä on huolehdittava. Luonnon monimuotoisuuden heikkeneminen on nähtävä pääoman kutistumisena, joka rapauttaa talouden perustaa. Kansantalouden keskeinen mittari, bruttokansantuote, ei huomioi luontopääoman kulumista, vaikka talous on samalla itsessään vahvasti riippuvainen luontopääomasta.

Taloudellinen ja sosiaalinen kestävyys koskevat ihmisten välisiä suhteita ja toimintaa, ja talous on väline - ei itsetarkoitus - hyvinvoinnin kasvattamiseksi. Sosiaalisen ja taloudellisen kestävyyden painotukset ovat politiikassa jatkuvan neuvottelun kohteena, ja kestävä kehitys näissä tarkoittaa mahdollisimman suuren hyvinvoinnin reilua ja tasapuolista jakaantumista ihmisten - nykyisten ja tulevien - kesken.

Metsien laaja talouskäyttö ei poissulje ekologisesti kestävää metsätaloutta

Tilastot metsien ekologisesta tilasta kertovat, että metsissämme on yhä enemmän puuta, mutta yhä vähemmän luontoa.

Suomen metsien puuston kasvu on nopeutunut, keskitilavuus kasvanut, metsät ovat tihentyneet ja järeiden puiden määrä on kasvanut.

Samaan aikaan kolme neljästä metsien luontotyypeistä on uhanalaisia, kaikista Suomen uhanalaisista lajeista ensisijaisesti metsissä elää liki kolmannes ja kehityssuunta on ollut heikkenevä.

Keskeiset lajiston uhanalaisuutta aiheuttavat tekijät ovat vanhojen metsien ja puiden väheneminen, lahopuun väheneminen sekä puulajisuhteiden muutokset. Koska ekosysteemi toimii monimuotoisuuden varassa, on selvää, että metsätalouden luontoperustainen kestävyys on vakavasti uhattuna.

Kookas metsäteollisuus tai metsien laaja talouskäyttö ei sulje pois ekologisesti kestävää metsätaloutta. Tämä edellyttää kuitenkin kolmea asiaa.

Ensinnäkin talousmetsien metsänkäsittelymenetelmiä on monipuolistettava. Paras tapa säilyttää mahdollisimman korkea luonnon monimuotoisuus on lisätä merkittävästi sitä metsien osuutta, jota hoidetaan niin kutsutun jatkuvan kasvatuksen tapaan ilman avohakkuita.

Jatkuvan kasvatuksen tulisi olla eniten käytetty metsien käsittelyn tapa, mutta kokonaan avohakkuista luopuminen ei ole paras vaihtoehto. Yhdistelmä jatkuvaa ja jaksollista avohakkuisiin perustuvaa kasvatusta sekä metsien luonnonhoidon toimia turvaisivat parhaiten talousmetsien luontoarvot ja metsien monitoiminnallisuuden.

Toiseksi tarvitaan hyvää metsäsuunnittelua. Metsien käytön suunnittelu siten, että tarkastellaan laajoja metsäkokonaisuuksia yli metsänomistajarajojen, mahdollistaa paremmin sekä suuren puuntuotannon että metsien muiden käyttötapojen ja monimuotoisuuden turvaamisen.

Kolmanneksi suojeltujen metsien määrää ja laatua on lisättävä merkittävästi erityisesti Etelä-Suomessa, missä suojeluaste on kaukana tarvittavasta määrästä. Mitkään talousmetsissä tehtävät luonnonhoitotoimenpiteet tai edes jatkuvan kasvatuksen merkittävä lisääminen eivät yksin riitä ekologisen kestävyyden turvaamiseen.

Riittävä lisäsuojelun määrä toki riippuu talousmetsien luontolaadusta, ja tehokkailla ja laajasti toteutetuilla luonnonhoitotoimilla voidaan pienentää pysyvien suojelualueiden tarvetta. Suomessa vallitseva hyvin intensiivinen puuntuotannon tapa merkitsee, että jopa kolmannes metsämaasta tulisi rajata talouskäytön ulkopuolelle, jos halutaan saavuttaa metsätalouden luontoperustainen kestävyys.

Avohakkuiden rajoittamiselle on vahva kannatus

Metsien käytön sosiaalinen kestävyys linkittyy vahvasti taloudelliseen kestävyyteen. Sosiaaliseen kestävyyteen kuuluu metsistä saatavan hyödyn turvaaminen kansalaisille ja eri toimijoille myös jatkossa. Hyötyjen moninaisuuden huomioiminen ja sitä kautta laaja hyväksyntä ovat sosiaalisen kestävyyden ytimessä.

Avohakkuisiin perustuva jaksollinen metsäkasvatus on vallitseva metsän kasvatustapa. Jatkuvan kasvatuksen tapaa käytetään vain 5 prosentissa talousmetsiä. Tämä on ristiriidassa kansalaisten asenteiden kanssa. Heistä suuri enemmistö ei tunnu hyväksyvän avohakkuita. Jopa neljä viidestä suomalaisesta rajoittaisi avohakkuita lailla, kertoo Kantar TNS Oy 2019 tekemä kyselytutkimus.

Myös suuri osa metsänomistajista haluaa enemmän metsien jatkuvaa kasvatusta. Heidän toiveidensa perusteella jopa puolet metsäpinta-alasta tulisi olla jatkuvassa kasvatuksessa. Tämä viittaa siihen, että metsänomistajien saama neuvonta ja metsätalouden kannusteet kallistavat tasapainon jaksollisen kasvatuksen hyväksi myös yleisen asenneilmapiirin vastaisesti.

Metsätalouden hyötyjen mittaaminen eri käyttäjien ja käyttötapojen näkökulmasta todennäköisesti lisäisi metsätalouden hyväksyttävyyttä varsinkin silloin, jos kansalaisten ja metsäomistajien mielipiteet otettaisiin enemmän huomioon.

Kestävä metsäpolitiikka ja kansallinen etu

Viimeaikaisessa keskustelussa on tuotu esiin huoli kansantalouden velkaantumisesta, joka heikentää edellytyksiä ylläpitää hyvinvointiyhteiskuntaa tulevaisuudessa. Kansantalouksien velkaantuminen rahassa on nollasummapeliä, jossa toisen velka on toisen saatava, ja tämän velan ehdoista käydään jatkuvaa neuvottelua.

Koska hyvinvointi pohjimmiltaan perustuu luontoon, elonkirjon köyhtyminen tarkoittaa meidän kaikkien yhteistä velkaantumista. Luontovelan takaisinmaksaminen tulee kalliiksi meille jokaiselle, riippumatta nykyisestä varallisuudesta tai asuinpaikasta.

Kokonaiskestävyyteen tähtäävä metsäpolitiikka tunnistaa ja tunnustaa sen, että kestävä hyvinvointi perustuu luonnon hyvinvoinnille. Kestävää on vain sellainen metsien käyttö, joka pysäyttää luontokadon ja turvaa elonkirjon säilymisen tulevaisuuteen.

Ekologiset reunaehdot huomioiva talouden edistäminen voi tuottaa merkittävää lisäarvoa ja hyvinvointia Suomeen.

Monitavoitteisuuden saavuttaminen edellyttää yhteensovittamista arvojen ja arvostusten välillä ja voi perustua vain osapuolten avoimeen keskusteluun ja aitoon kuuntelemiseen. Mitä jos aloittaisimme kuuntelemalla kansalaisten suurta enemmistöä ja luopuisimme avohakkuista yhteisissä, valtion omistamissa metsissä?

Suomi on kestävän metsätalouden testipenkki. Meillä on globaalista perspektiivistä katsottuna verrattain yksinkertainen metsäekosysteemi. Pitkän ja korkeatasoisen metsäntutkimuksen historian ansiosta tunnemme hyvin metsänpuiden kasvun biologisen perustan ja metsälajiston ekologian.

Meillä on runsaasti sosiaalista pääomaa metsäalalla, toimivat neuvontaorganisaatiot ja luottamukseen perustuva yhteiskunta. Metsätalouden infrastruktuuri on kehittynyttä. Suomella on siis parhaat mahdolliset edellytykset onnistua tekemään metsätaloudesta aidosti kokonaiskestävä hyvinvoinnin lähde, missä talouden luontoperustaisuus on otettu raamittavaksi tekijäksi, talous on otettu hyvinvoinnin turvaamisen ja kasvattamisen välineeksi ja sosiaalinen kestävyys on turvattu tunnistaen metsän monet arvot.

Suomen kannattaisi kansainvälisilläkin foorumeilla näyttää johtajuutta ja lähteä rakentavasti ajamaan luontoperustaista kestävää metsästrategiaa EU:ssa ja globaalisti. Se on myös kansallinen etu nyt ja tulevaisuudessa.

Tämä artikkeli on julkaistu Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 -lisenssillä.

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Kestävä metsätalous edellyttää talouden mittareiden laajentamista, kansalaisten ja metsänomistajien tahdon kuulemista sekä kestävyyden luontoperustan tunnustamista | MustRead

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Suomalainen keskustelu metsätaloudesta tarkastelee asiaa liian yksipuolisesta näkökulmasta. Perinteinen tapa ymmärtää taloudellinen kestävyys tarkoittaa, että metsätalouden elinvoimaisuus, tuottavuus ja kannattavuus säilyvät pitkällä aikavälillä. Keskeiset mittarit taloudelliselle kestävyydelle ovat olleet poistuman (hakkuut ja luonnonpoistuma) ja kasvun suhde, sekä hakkuiden suhde suurimpaan puuntuotannollisesti kestävään hakkuumäärään.

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Finland and climate change

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"Ilmastonmuutos ja Golfvirran mahdollinen hidastuminen ovat aivan omat katastrofinsa", sanoo meteorologi Kerttu Kotakorpi.

Tuoreiden tutkimusten mukaan Golfvirta saattaa olla pysähtymässä jopa kokonaan.

Torstaina Nature Climate Change -tiedelehdessä julkaistun tutkimuksen mukaan Atlantin valtameren termohaliininen kierto (AMOC) on nimittäin "menettänyt lähes täydellisesti vakautensa viimeisen sadan vuoden aikana". Golfvirta on osa AMOC:ia.

Jos näin kävisi, sillä olisi merkittäviä vaikutuksia ilmastoon ympäri maailmaa. Länsi- ja Pohjois-Euroopassa lämpötilat laskisivat, myrskyt lisääntyisivät, vedenpinta nousisi. Vaikutusten ulkopuolelle ei jäisi myöskään Suomi, jossa ilmasto on lauhkea Golfvirran ansiosta.

On kuitenkin syytä huomioida, että AMOC:iin ja Golfvirtaan liittyvät tutkimukset ovat vielä niin sanotusti lapsen kengissä verrattuna esimerkiksi ilmastonmuutoksesta tehtyjen tutkimusten määrään ja laajuuteen. Siinä missä ilmastonmuutoksesta tiedetään hyvin paljon ja tarkasti, ja ilmastonmuutoksen aiheuttamat muutokset näkyvät jo nyt, monimutkainen AMOC on monelta osin vielä tutkijoillekin mysteeri.

Sen tutkimukset ovat kuitenkin vahvistaneet, että AMOC:n virtaus on heikentynyt. Se on nyt heikoimmillaan jopa 1 600 vuoteen.

Lue lisää: Tutkimus: Atlantin merivirtojen hiipuminen saattaa ylittää pisteen, josta ei ole enää paluuta - vaikuttaisi katastrofaalisesti ilmastoon

Syynä virtauksen heikkenemiseen on tutkijoiden mukaan ilmastonmuutos, sillä teoreettiset meri- ja ilmastomallit ovat osoittaneet, että kun ilmasto lämpenee, Golfvirta heikkenee. Muun muassa jäätiköiden sulaminen muuttaa kiertoa, kun meriveteen sekoittuu suuria määriä makeaa vettä, mikä hidastaa Golfvirran pystysuoraa liikettä.

Maanantaina Ilmatieteen laitoksen ja Ympäristöministeriön pitämässä tiedotustilaisuudessa asiantuntijat kertoivat, että termohaalinikierron romahtaminen on kuitenkin epätodennäköistä.

- On ollut tiedossa, että termohaliinikierto heikkenee ja tulee heikkenemään koko tulevan vuosisadan. Ei pidetä kuitenkaan kovin todennäköisenä tällaista romahdusta, apulaisprofessori Annalea Lohila Helsingin yliopistosta kommentoi tuoretta tutkimusta.

- (AMOC:ssa) Kyse on aika monimutkaisesta ja herkästä ilmiöstä, ja vaatii lisätutkimuksia, että saadaan varmuutta. Viime viikolla tullut uusi tieteellinen julkaisu aiheesta oli hieman erilainen kuin moni muu tutkimus. Siinä tuloksena oli käsittääkseni se, että se (Golfvirta) saattaisi pysähtyä kokonaan, mutta siihen liittyy vielä paljon epävarmuuksia, totesi Ilmatieteen laitoksen pääjohtaja Jussi Kaurola.

"On ollut tiedossa, että termohaliinikierto heikkenee ja tulee heikkenemään koko tulevan vuosisadan."

Sitten pieni ajatusleikki: Miten kävisi pikkuisen Suomen, jos Golfvirta heikentyisi merkittävästi tai jopa pysähtyisi kokonaan?

Meteorologi Kerttu Kotakorpi kertoo, että vaikutukset olisivat valtavat.

- Golfvirta on se, joka on tuonut meille lämpimän ilman. Monesti vertauksena käytetään sitä, millaiset ilmasto-olosuhteet ovat esimerkiksi Kanadassa tällä korkeudella, niin onhan siellä tosi paljon kylmempi.

Lämpötila Suomessa voisi pudota 10-15 astetta.

Ilmasto olisi myös mantereisempi, mikä vaikuttaisi erityisesti talviin. Mantereinen ilmasto on ilmastotyyppi, jossa kesät ovat kuivempia ja kuumempia, talvet kylmempiä.

- Sillä (Golfvirran merkittävällä hidastumisella) olisi todella laajoja vaikutuksia laajoilla alueilla koko Atlantin ympäristössä. Käytännössä koko meidän ilmastomme muuttuisi ihan toiseksi, koska sillä lämmöllä, mitä nyt saamme, on niin iso merkitys.

- Sillä olisi jopa merkittävämpiä vaikutuksia täällä kuin ilmastonmuutoksella itsellään pelkästään.

Guardian kertoi aiemmin, että Golfvirran merkittävä heikentyminen tai jopa pysähtyminen aiheuttaisi myös sen, että myrskyt Euroopassa lisääntyisivät. Uuden tutkimuksen mukaan sadevaikutuksia olisi lisäksi ympäri maapalloa.

Lue myös: 7 konkreettista asiaa: näin ilmastonmuutos vaikuttaa Suomeen - hirmuhelteet pahenevat, lumi jää etelässä vain muistoksi

Usein kuulee väitteen, että Golfvirran hiipuminen kumoaa ilmaston lämpenemisen vaikutukset. Tämä on kuitenkin virhepäätelmä, Kotakorpi sanoo.

- Ajattelen niin, että ilmastonmuutos ja Golfvirran mahdollinen hidastuminen ovat aivan omat katastrofinsa.

Vaikka Golfvirran hiipuminen viilentääkin esimerkiksi Eurooppaa ja ilmastonmuutos lämmittää sitä, nämä kaksi prosessia eivät mitenkään "hyödytä" toisiaan, Kotakorpi sanoo. Ilmastonmuutos aiheuttaa omat ongelmansa, Golfvirran hiipuminen omansa.

- Kyse ei ole siitä, että Golfvirran hidastumisella peruutettaisiin ilmastonmuutos, vaan samalla siirryttäisiin kylmempään ilmastoon. Tänne ei tulisi vain jokin kiva, vanhan ajan talvi, vaan koko ilmastojärjestelmä muuttuisi.

Toisaalta myöskin pohdinnat siitä, miten nimenomaan Suomelle kävisi, ovat kapeakatseisia. Suomi on vauras maa, jossa ilmastonmuutoksen ja Golfvirran heikentymiseen liittyviin muutoksiin pystyttäisiin ja pystytään sopeutumaan. Tilanne ei ole yhtä onnekas kaikkialla.

- Olemme Suomessa varakkaita ja tottuneet erilaisiin säihin. Vaikka ilmasto viilenisikin, mikä vaikuttaisi esimerkiksi viljelyyn, pärjäisimme kuitenkin, kun taas jos ajattelee koko Euroopan mittakaavaa, niin talvien kylmenemisellä olisi todella mittavia vaikutuksia.

Puhumattakaan siitä, miten kävisi köyhemmillä alueilla, Kotakorpi sanoo.

- On ennustettu, että jos lämpöä ei kulkeutuisi pohjoiseen vaan se jäisi enemmän päiväntasaajalle, siellä hirmumyrskyt voisivat voimistua todella paljon, ja merivesi nousisi todella voimakkaasti.

Virtauksen pysähtyminen myös muun muassa vähentäisi merkittävästi sateita, joista miljoonien ihmisten ruoantuotanto Intiassa, Etelä-Amerikassa ja Länsi-Afrikassa on riippuvainen. Golfvirran pysähtyminen olisi myös vaaraksi Amazonin sademetsille ja Etelämantereen jäätiköille.

Ei siis ole kyse vain siitä, että suomalaiset joutuisivat laittamaan päälle paksumman talvitakin, vaan koko maailma muuttuisi lukemattomilla erilaisilla tavoilla. Tutkijoiden mukaan Golfvirran pysähtymisellä olisikin niin katastrofaaliset seuraukset, että sitä ei koskaan saa tapahtua.

"Ilmastonmuutoksen hillitseminen on kaikkein tärkeintä."

Ennusteiden mukaan Golfvirran merkittävän heikkenemisen todennäköisyys on pieni seuraavan sadan vuoden aikana.

- Seuraavan kolmensadan vuoden aikana todennäköisyys kasvaa varteenotettavaksi, Ilmakehätieteiden instituutin (INAR) professori Petteri Uotila kertoi STT:lle aikaisemmin.

Aiemmin tänä vuonna Nature Geoscience -lehdessä julkaistussa tutkimuksessa ennustettiin, että AMOC-kierron voimakkuus saattaisi tämän vuosisadan loppuun mennessä laskea noin 34-45 prosenttia, mikä saattaisi olla kynnys, josta ei ole enää paluuta. Kynnyksen ylityttyä AMOC:sta saattaisi tutkijoiden mukaan tulla peruuttamattomasti epävakaa.

Kotakorpi näkee, että Golfvirran heikentymisen hidastaminen on yksi niistä lukuisista syistä, joiden takia ihmiskunnan kannattaa kamppailla ilmastonmuutosta vastaan.

- Ilmastonmuutos ei tarkoita vain yksittäisiä ikäviä asioita, vaan se on nippu todella vakavia seurauksia, joista osa on peruuttamattomia. Siksi ilmastonmuutoksen hillitseminen on kaikkein tärkeintä.

Alla olevasta videosta näet, millaisia luonnon ääri-ilmiöitä tapahtui eri puolilla maailmaa heinäkuussa 2021.

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Suomea voi uhata tulevaisuudessa ilmastonmuutosta pahempi ilmastokatastrofi - tällaisia seurauksia Golfvirran pysähtymisellä olisi

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"Ilmastonmuutos ja Golfvirran mahdollinen hidastuminen ovat aivan omat katastrofinsa", sanoo meteorologi Kerttu Kotakorpi. Tuoreiden tutkimusten mukaan Golfvirta saattaa olla pysähtymässä jopa kokonaan. Torstaina Nature Climate Change -tiedelehdessä julkaistun tutkimuksen mukaan Atlantin valtameren termohaliininen kierto (AMOC) on nimittäin "menettänyt lähes täydellisesti vakautensa viimeisen sadan vuoden aikana". Golfvirta on osa AMOC:ia.

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Ekologian professori ja Suomen Luontopaneelin puheenjohtaja Janne Kotiaho kuvattuna kotitilallaan Jyväskylän Korpilahdella joulukuussa 2020. Kotiahon kanat munivat perheen tarpeisiin ja niitä riittää annettavaksi ystävillekin. Marko Kauko

Hallitustenvälisen ilmastopaneelin eli IPCC:n uuden raportin mukaan kulunut vuosikymmen on ollut lämpimämpi kuin koskaan jääkauden päättymisen jälkeen. Erilaiset sään ääri-ilmiöt lisääntyvät, jos maapallon lämpenemistä ei saada pysäytettyä. Jyväskylän yliopiston ekologian professori, Suomen Luontopaneelin puheenjohtaja Janne Kotiaho listaa, mitä esimerkiksi Keski-Suomessa voidaan tehdä ilmastonmuutoksen torjumiseksi.

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Näistä viidestä teosta maapallo kiittää - Suomen Luontopaneelin puheenjohtaja listaa, mitä Keski-Suomessa pitää tehdä ilmastonmuutoksen hillitsemiseksi

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Hallitustenvälisen ilmastopaneelin eli IPCC:n uuden raportin mukaan kulunut vuosikymmen on ollut lämpimämpi kuin koskaan jääkauden päättymisen jälkeen. Erilaiset sään ääri-ilmiöt lisääntyvät, jos maapallon lämpenemistä ei saada pysäytettyä. Jyväskylän yliopiston ekologian professori, Suomen Luontopaneelin puheenjohtaja Janne Kotiaho listaa, mitä esimerkiksi Keski-Suomessa voidaan tehdä ilmastonmuutoksen torjumiseksi.

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Catastrophic floods such as those that struck Europe recently could become much more frequent as a result of global heating, researchers say.

High-resolution computer models suggest that slow-moving storms could become 14 times more common over land by the end of the century in a worst-case scenario. The slower a storm moves, the more rain it dumps on a small area and the greater the risk of serious flooding.

Researchers already knew that the higher air temperatures caused by the climate crisis mean the atmosphere can hold more moisture, which in turn has led to more extreme downpours. The latest analysis, however, is the first to assess the role of slow-moving storms in causing extreme downpours in Europe.

The storms projected in the new study move even more slowly than those which drenched Germany, the Netherlands and other countries in the past week and so would lead to even more extreme rainfall and flooding. "The simulations give the idea that even worse can happen," said Abdullah Kahraman at Newcastle University in the UK, who led the research.

Prof Lizzie Kendon at the UK Met Office said: "This study shows that in addition to the intensification of rainfall with global warming, we can also expect a big increase in slow-moving storms. This is very relevant to the recent flooding seen in Germany and Belgium, which highlights the devastating impacts of slow-moving storms."

Scientists think the rapidly warming Arctic may be the root cause of slowing weather systems, by decelerating high-level winds such as the jet stream. The phenomenon has already been linked to devastating heatwaves in Russia and floods in Pakistan.

The study showed the biggest increase in slow-moving storms over land was in the summer. "In the summertime, especially in August, the highest increase occurs over a large part of the European continent," said Kahraman.

He was surprised the modelled impact extended to the colder northern regions of Europe: "We found that the whole of Europe, including the UK and Scandinavia, experience such really slow extreme rainstorm potential," he said.

The intensity and scale of the recent floods in western Europe, in which more than 180 people died, have shocked climate scientists, who did not expect records to be so comprehensively broken over such a wide area or so soon.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited one of the worst-affected areas on Sunday and said: "We have to up the pace in the fight against climate change." Many climate scientists have said global heating is making extreme weather more frequent and intense.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used Met Office computer models with a resolution of 2km, the same as used in short-term weather forecasting. The scientists assessed the change in slow-moving storms in a scenario where carbon emissions are not cut and continue to rise.

"This gives us a very useful idea of how the climate can change if people do not really change in terms of emissions or behaviour, so I think this is useful in that sense," said Kahraman.

The analysis is one of the first to model the climate of the whole of Europe at such small resolution. The team hope to examine slow-moving storms in other scenarios where emissions are cut in the future, but expect the increases in the frequency of such storms to remain.

"Governments across the world have been too slow in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming continues apace," said Prof Hayley Fowler, also at Newcastle University and part of the study team.

"This study suggests that changes to extreme storms will be significant and cause an increase in the frequency of devastating flooding across Europe. This, alongside the current floods in Europe, is the wake-up call we need to produce improved emergency warning and management systems."

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Catastrophic floods could hit Europe far more often, study finds

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Catastrophic floods such as those that struck Europe recently could become much more frequent as a result of global heating, researchers say. High-resolution computer models suggest that slow-moving storms could become 14 times more common over land by the end of the century in a worst-case scenario.

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Ilmastonmuutos lisää sateita Suomessa, ja rakennuksilta vaaditaan entistä parempaa kosteuskestävyyttä. Pitkät hellejaksot puolestaan nostavat sisälämpötiloja etenkin vanhoissa kerrostaloissa. Rakennussuunnitteluun on tehtävä muutoksia, sanovat asiantuntijat.

Entistä tukalampiin helleaaltoihin ja ilmastonmuutoksen aiheuttamiin sään ääri-ilmiöihin on alettava varautua myös rakentamisessa, sanovat alan asiantuntijat.

Ilmastonmuutos kuormittaa rakennuksia monella tavalla.

- Lämpötilat nousevat, sademäärät ja viistosateet rakennusten julkisivuille lisääntyvät. Kuivumiskyky hidastuu, kun pilvisyys lisääntyy ja auringon suora kuivausvaikutus vähenee, luettelee Tampereen yliopiston rakennusfysiikan professori Juha Vinha.

Isoimman haasteen muodostavat lisääntyvät sateet, jotka vaativat rakenteilta nykyistä parempaa kosteuskestävyyttä. Se pitäisikin Vinhan mukaan huomioida rakennusmateriaalien valinnassa.

Esimerkiksi kivirakenteinen talo on paitsi viileä, myös kestää hyvin kosteutta. Puuverhous on Vinhan mukaan hyvä ratkaisu puutalolle, mutta tiiliverhoiltu puutalo puolestaan on riskialttein vaihtoehto, sillä tiili kerää helposti kosteutta.

- Sadevesi sitoutuu tiileen ja pyrkii kuivumaan myös rakenteeseen sisälle päin, missä voi olla herkemmin vaurioituvia osia. Esimerkiksi tiiliverhoiltua puurunkoista ulkoseinärakennetta on meillä Suomessa todella paljon, Vinha sanoo.

Siksi runkorakenteet on sadesäiden lisääntyessä suojattava nykyistä paremmin ja rakennuksen ulko-osan on kestettävä kosteutta, Vinha kitetyttää.

- Kivipohjaisia ja kestäviä materiaaleja rakenteiden ulko-osiin, ja puupohjaiset herkemmin vaurioituvat rakenteiden sisäosiin. Varsinkin kantavien puurakenteiden ulkopuolelle olisi lisättävä lämmöneristystä, niin että ne olisivat paremmin suojassa, hän sanoo.

Toimitusjohtaja Ilkka Salo Talotekninen teollisuus ja kauppa ry:stä nostaa esiin myös sadevesien pois johtamisen.

- Esimerkiksi hulevesiä tulee olemaan enemmän, ja ne täytyy saada johdettua pois niin, etteivät ne painu rakenteisiin, Salo sanoo.

Kovista helteistä puolestaan kärsivät ennen kaikkea vanhojen asuinkerrostalojen yläkerrokset. Kuumuus ei aiheuta suoraa riskiä rakenteille, mutta sisälämpötilat nousevat tukaliksi.

Lämpöä valuu sisään esimerkiksi ikkunoiden kautta. Lisäksi Suomessa talojen hyvä eristys osaltaan estää asumisesta syntyvän lämmön poistumista rakennuksesta.

Jos ulkona on lämpimämpi kuin sisällä, ei ikkunoita kannattaisi avata päiväsaikaan ollenkaan, ja sälekaihtimet olisi syytä pitää kiinni, sanoo Ilkka Salo.

- Se voi tietysti tuntua suomalaisittain vähän oudolta. Omakoti- ja rivitaloasujilla on helpompi saada ristivetoa aikaiseksi iltasella ja öisin, mutta kerrostaloissa tämä on hieman vaikeaa. Silloin on tietysti erilaisia jäähdytysratkaisuja, joita voi viritellä, Salo sanoo.

Myös rakennuksen ulkopinnan värillä on väliä, sillä vaaleapintaiset talot eivät ime auringon lämpösäteilyä yhtä tehokkasti kuin tummat pinnat.

- Suomessa julkisivuissa suositaan tällä hetkellä hyvin tummia pintoja. Auringon säteily jää niihin tehokkaammin ja lämpötilat nousevat, ja säteilyn rapauttava vaikutus on vaaleita pintoja suurempi, sanoo Juha Vinha.

Vinhan mukaan tukalat helteet tulisikin huomioida rakentamisessa esimerkiksi auringon lämpösäteilyltä suojaavilla ikkunoilla ja ulkoisilla suojauksilla, kuten kaihtimilla tai markiiseilla.

Paljon voi tehdä jo suunnitteluvaiheessa, sanoo puolestaan Ilkka Salo.

- Lämpötilalle on paljon tehtävissä passiivisilla ratkaisuilla lähtien siitä, mihin suuntaan rakennuksen ikkunat ovat. Suunnittelijan ruudulla näitä on helppoa ja halpaa pyöritellä, mutta jälkikäteen se on kallista ja vaikeaa, Salo toteaa.

Ilkka Salon mukaan yksi ongelma nykyrakentamisessa on, että rakennussuunnittelun apuna käytetään pitkälti 1980-2010-lukujen säätietoja, niin sanottua testisäätä.

- 2000-luku on ollut huomattavasti lämpimämpi kuin viime vuosituhannen loppupuoli. Kun suunnitelmissa käytetään testisäätä vuosilta 1980-2010, ei hyödynnetä kaikkia mahdollisia keinoja lämpötilan hallintaan, Salo sanoo.

Saman toteaa Juha Vinha.

- Myös rakennusfysiikan puolella on huomattu, että testivuodet eivät enää vastaa nykyistä tilannetta. Meillä on jo nyt sellaisia rakenteiden toimintaa rasittavia olosuhteita, joita piti olla vasta vuonna 2050.

Vinhan mukaan sekä talotekniikan että rakennusfysiikan käyttämiä testivuosia ollaan parhaillaan päivittämässä ympäristöministeriön kanssa.

Jos rakennussuunnittelun pohjana käytettäisiin tuoreempaa säädataa, tulisi helteiden ja äärisäiden vaikutus huomioitua jo suunnitteluvaiheessa, arvioi Ilkka Salo.
Juttua muokattu 13.7. kello 18:50: Korjattu Sini Kahiluodon nimi Sini Kahilammeksi. Lämpöpumppu viilentää ihanasti, mutta talon rakenteille voi koitua yllättäviä seurauksia - professori varoittaa riskeistä tietylle talotyypille Vanhan kerrostalon viilennys vaatisi kalliin remontin - ilmalämpöpumppujen lisääntyminen parvekkeilla jättää osan asukkaista helteen armoille

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Suomalaiset talot on suunniteltu entisaikojen säiden perusteella, ja siitä voi tulla ongelma - kehitys uhkaa trendikkäitä mustia taloja

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Ilmastonmuutos lisää sateita Suomessa, ja rakennuksilta vaaditaan entistä parempaa kosteuskestävyyttä. Pitkät hellejaksot puolestaan nostavat sisälämpötiloja etenkin vanhoissa kerrostaloissa. Rakennussuunnitteluun on tehtävä muutoksia, sanovat asiantuntijat. Entistä tukalampiin helleaaltoihin ja ilmastonmuutoksen aiheuttamiin sään ääri-ilmiöihin on alettava varautua myös rakentamisessa, sanovat alan asiantuntijat. Ilmastonmuutos kuormittaa rakennuksia monella tavalla. - Lämpötilat nousevat, sademäärät ja viistosateet rakennusten julkisivuille lisääntyvät.

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“Burning wood for electricity releases more carbon into the atmosphere than gas or coal"

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“Burning wood for electricity releases more carbon into the atmosphere than gas or coal"

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'Enough with the burning': EU executive accused of sacrificing forests

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The EU executive has been accused of "sacrificing forests" after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel. The charges of "accelerating climate breakdown" through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.

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Image: Henrietta Hassinen / Yle

The EU announced a massive climate package on Wednesday that aims to push the bloc towards carbon neutrality by 2050, a target Finland has said it wants to achieve by 2035.

The raft of proposals covers a range of sectors-from industrial emissions to housing, agriculture and forestry. But as transport emissions account for a quarter of all EU greenhouse gases, many measures will home in on car and air travel.

Electric cars and rising fuel prices

After 2035 the EU wants all new cars to be emissions free, effectively resulting in a ban on new petrol and diesel cars.

"Finland tried to influence the EU to still include petrol cars in the deal, but unfortunately both the EU Commission and car manufacturers seem to only want to move forward with electric vehicles," Transport Minister Timo Harakka said on Thursday.

The transition will, however, be gradual as people buy new cars. To speed up the switch to zero-emission electric vehicles, the Commission proposed a maximum distance of 60 kilometres between charging stations on major roads by 2025. Last year Finland initiated a 5.5-million-euro programme to install thousands of charging stations across the country.

That said, petrol and gasoline fuels could become more expensive in the move towards cleaner vehicles.

The carbon revamp will see heating bills rise for those using fossil fuels to warm their homes, as residential buildings would join emissions trading schemes paying for the right to pollute.

In the future, power companies will have to purchase carbon credits for burning coal, natural gas, peat and oil-energy sources widely used in Helsinki.

Proposals also target airlines. New taxes on aviation fuel will encourage the flight industry to increase its use of renewable energy sources, though carriers may pass costs on to passengers.

Consumers will eventually also pay more for goods manufactured using fossil fuels.

A governemnt release on Wednesday said the Commission had set Finland a 50 percent emission reduction target by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

The broad package of measures is still in a preliminary stage, and member states will now engage in bilateral negotiations with the Commission, with some countries likely to seek financial incentives to cut emissions.

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EU climate package impacts transport in Finland

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The EU announced a massive climate package on Wednesday that aims to push the bloc towards carbon neutrality by 2050, a target Finland has said it wants to achieve by 2035. The raft of proposals covers a range of sectors-from industrial emissions to housing, agriculture and forestry.

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The EU wants new cars to be zero-emission in 14 years, emissions trading for cars and housing, and support for the poor - here you will find the content of the climate package and the reactions of various parties

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The EU wants new cars to be zero-emission in 14 years, emissions trading for cars and housing, and support for the poor - here you will find the content of the climate package and the reactions of various parties

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Katso suorana kello 13 alkaen: EU-komissio esittelee lainsäädännön jättipaketin, jolla se haluaa leikata Euroopan päästöjä tuntuvasti

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Komission laajassa ehdotuksessa käsitellään niin teollisuuden päästöt, liikenne, asuminen, maatalous, uusiutuva energia kuin metsätkin.

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Inspirational interview with Julia Hertell (FIN) : In a way, all new construction is ecologically criminal.  https://buff.ly/2VcknQT

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Inspirational interview with Julia Hertell (FIN) : In a way, all new construction is ecologically criminal.  https://buff.ly/2VcknQT

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Julia Hertellin mielestä arkkitehtien kannattaa lukea mahdollisimman laajasti, myös tutkimuskirjallisuutta, saadakseen pontta argumentointiinsa. "Kaikkien alojen ihmisillä on velvollisuus pyrkiä kehittymään", Hertell sanoo.

Teksti: Anni Varis

Julia Hertell. Kuva: Johanna Brummer

Julia Hertell on toinen Mer Arkkitehtien osakkaista. Pienessä toimistossa työskentely on hektistä, mutta aikaa löytyy myös yhteiskunnalliseen vaikuttamiseen. Hertell on mukana Rakennusperintö-SAFAn johtokunnassa, minkä lisäksi hän on ollut järjestämässä Mer Arkkitehtien työpajoja, keskusteluiltoja ja lukupiirejä.
Mikä on sinulle tärkeintä työssäsi?
Olemme toimistollamme kiinnostuneita luonnonmateriaaleista, massiivirakenteista ja painovoimaisesta ilmanvaihdoista. Niihin tutustuminen on ollut todella antoisaa. Kaikista palkitsevinta on nähdä valmistuneita kohteita, joissa on käytetty vähemmän esimerkiksi muovia.

Jos voisimme tehdä rakennuksia, jotka innostavat muita suunnittelemaan vielä parempia rakennuksia, niin se olisi mahtavaa. Arkkitehtina toimimisessa mielenkiintoista on se, kuinka lähes jokaisessa hankkeessa tehdään töitä uuden organisaation kanssa uniikin toimeksiannon parissa. Näin ollen on kohtuutonta vaatia itseltään täydellistä onnistumista, mikä pitäisi myös osata muistaa työtä tehdessä.

Tavallaan kaikki uuden rakentaminen on ekologiselta kannalta rikollista.

Ideaalirakennus olisi todellisesti kestävän kehityksen mukainen. Tavallaan kaikki uuden rakentaminen on ekologiselta kannalta rikollista. Täydellisessä hankkeessa toteutuisi kestävän kehityksen lisäksi myös tilallinen runous. Ihmiset kokisivat tilassa sykähdyttävän elämyksen ja tila herättäisi tunteita.
Mer Arkkitehdit on järjestänyt työpajoja, keskusteluiltoja ja lukupiirejä. Mikä niiden tarkoitus on?
Järjestämme niitä ennen kaikkea siksi, että se on hauskaa. Se on tärkeintä.

Mielestäni kaikkien alojen ihmisillä on velvollisuus pyrkiä kehittymään koko ajan. Jos opiskelit 2000-luvulla, silloin opitut asiat eivät enää päde samalla tavalla tänä päivänä. Varsinaisten koulutusten ja kurssien lisäksi on hyvä olla olemassa myös epämuodollisia tapahtumia, joissa käsitellään työasioita. Se on tärkeää motivaation kannalta. Omien arvojen määrittelyn ja keskustelujen kautta voi pohtia, mitä oikeasti haluaa tehdä.

Olemme käsitelleet työpajoissa esimerkiksi rakennusvirheitä ja sisäilmaongelmia. Ideana on yhdessä oppiminen. Workshopissa, jonka aiheena oli maapallon kantokyvyn rajat, kokeilimme roolipeliharjoitusta. Siinä osallistujat asettuivat pienen itäsuomalaisen kunnan asukkaiden rooleihin ja kuvittelivat, miten oma roolihenkilö reagoisi ilmastokriisin seurauksiin.
Mistä lukupiirien järjestäminen sai alkunsa?
Lukupiirien idea lähti siitä, että arkkitehtiopinnoissa luettiin todella vähän teoriaa. Lukulistojen läpikäynti ei ollut pakollista, joten kaikki aika ja energia meni muuhun.

Lukulistojen läpikäynti ei ollut pakollista, joten kaikki aika ja energia meni muuhun.

Kun jälkeenpäin tapasin ulkomaalaisia arkkitehtejä, jotka tunsivat arkkitehtuurin historian laajasti ja pystyivät muodostamaan kiinnostavia johtopäätöksiä eri asioista, jäin keskusteluissa aivan sanattomaksi. Tuntui siltä että nyt pitäisi skarpata!

Teoriakirjoja lukiessa alkoi tehdä mieli keskustella asioista jonkun kanssa. Kun kukaan muukaan ei ollut lukenut kirjoja, eikä voinut ottaa kantaa niihin, syntyi ajatus yhdessä lukemisesta.
Mitä kaikkea arkkitehti voi saada irti lukupiiristä?
Yhteiset keskustelut tukevat sekä verkostoitumista että jatkuvaa oppimista. Kirjoista nousee esiin tietoa, jota voi käyttää työssä. Todella kiinnostava teos on esimerkiksi arkkitehtuurikriitikko Sarah Williams Goldhagenin Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives, jossa käsitellään tutkimuksia siitä, miten rakennettu ympäristö vaikuttaa ihmisiin.

Koen että arkkitehdeilla on usein pulaa hyvistä argumenteista, joilla voisi perustella tilallisesti parempia mutta kalliimpia ratkaisuja. Tutkimustiedon avulla voidaan kertoa, miten ne maksavat itsensä takaisin. Hoivaympäristöjä tutkimalla on esimerkiksi selvitetty, millaiset ratkaisut nopeuttavat potilaiden paranemista.
Mitä neuvoja antaisit arkkitehdeille, jotka ovat kiinnostuneita järjestämään omia tapahtumia?
Lukupiiristä on helppo aloittaa, sillä kirja antaa keskustelulle selkeän aiheen. Yksi ensimmäisistä lukupiirimme kirjoista oli alkuperäinen Vilhelm Helanderin ja Mikael Sundmanin Kenen Helsinki - raportti kantakaupungista 1970 -pamfletti. Sehän on taas ajankohtainen ja puhutteleva uuden pamfletin julkaisun myötä. Jos toimistossa on jonkin teeman asiantuntija, niin häneltä kannattaa pyytää alustus lukupiiriin tai työpajaan.

Kaikki ovat tietysti tervetulleita tutustumaan myös meidän työpajoihimme. Erityisesti olisimme kiinnostuneita saamaan mukaan rakennesuunnittelijoita ja LVI-suunnittelijoita, sillä usein tuntuu siltä, että arkkitehdit pyörittelevät asioita vain omissa piireissään, vaikka olemme kaikki samassa veneessä.

Artikkeli on julkaistu Arkkitehtiuutisten numerossa 5/2021.
Lue juttunäköislehdestä.

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"Arkkitehtiopinnoissa luettiin todella vähän teoriaa" - Mer Arkkitehtien Julia Hertell kannustaa arkkitehteja lukemaan kirjoja ja keskustelemaan niistä

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Julia Hertellin mielestä arkkitehtien kannattaa lukea mahdollisimman laajasti, myös tutkimuskirjallisuutta, saadakseen pontta argumentointiinsa. "Kaikkien alojen ihmisillä on velvollisuus pyrkiä kehittymään", Hertell sanoo. Teksti: Anni Varis Julia Hertell on toinen Mer Arkkitehtien osakkaista. Pienessä toimistossa työskentely on hektistä, mutta aikaa löytyy myös yhteiskunnalliseen vaikuttamiseen.

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Important lessons from Canada heatwave for Finland

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Important lessons from Canada heatwave for Finland

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Lyttonin maisemat väräyttävät suomalaisen sisintä: tummanvihreät havupuut reunustavat kirkkaiden pohjoisten jokien risteykseen perustettua kylää. Lohet nousevat kesäkaudella kylmässä ja happirikkaassa vedessä pitkälle yläjuoksuun. Siellä täällä jääkauden jälkeensä jättämissä muodoissa erottuu noin 5 000 vuotta vanhoja kalliomaalauksia, aivan kuin Saimaan Astuvansalmella.

Mutta nyt Lytton on tulessa.

Kylässä mitattiin viime viikon sunnuntaista lähtien kolme peräkkäistä lämpöennätystä, jotka hipoivat 50 celsiusastetta. Koko Kanadan Brittiläinen Kolumbia kärvistelee hellekupolissa, joka leimahti loppuviikosta kymmeniksi metsäpaloiksi. Yli puolet Lyttonin kodeista on tuhoutunut.

Paloja ei voi näissä olosuhteissa pysäyttää millään, kertoi aluetta valvova palokunta Twitterissä torstaina. Niiden tila on "hallitsematon".

"Koko Lyttonin kylää ei ehkä kohta enää ole", toteaa maantieteilijä ja arvostetun CCAG-ilmastotutkijaryhmän jäsen Tero Mustonen. Hän kirjoitti pian julkaistavaan YK:n hallitustenvälisen ilmastopaneelin IPCC:n vuotuiseen raporttiin kalottialuetta ja Eurooppaa koskevan osuuden.

Mustonen on vieraillut Lyttonissa työnsä puolesta monta kertaa. Tällä viikolla hän on soitellut seudulla asuville ystävilleen, jotka pelkäävät kotiensa tuhoutumista.

"Siellä on toivottomuus päällimmäisenä mielessä", hän sanoo.

"Tämä meni täysin kaikkien odotusten yli. Kukaan ei osannut hahmottaa, että tämä olisi mahdollista."

Mustosen mielestä viimeistään Lyttonin tragedian pitäisi olla se konkreettinen varoitusmerkki, joka saa suomalaiset käsittämään ilmastonmuutoksen ja luontokadon riskit. Lytton ja Suomi sijaitsevat kilometreissä laskettuna kaukana toisistaan, mutta maantieteellisesti ne sijoittuvat samalle boreaaliselle vyöhykkeelle.

"Jengi on turtunut yleiseen puheeseen lämpenemisestä ja jäätiköiden sulamisesta ja niin edelleen. Mutta nyt näemme ensimmäistä kertaa katastrofin näin pohjoisessa, lätkämaassa, johon suomalaiset pystyvät samaistumaan", hän sanoo.

"Mitä muuta tarvitaan, jotta ihmiset ymmärtävät tämän tilanteen? Jos tämä ei riitä, niin mikä sitten?"

Lytton on Suomea etelämpänä, joten todennäköisyys yhä hurjaan helleaaltoon on pienempi. Mustonen ei kuitenkaan rajaisi 50 asteenkaan lämpötilaa mahdottomaksi.

"Emme voi kuvitella, mitä on tulossa, kun planetaarinen järjestelmä muuttuu. Aika paljon on mahdollista, en lukitsisi mitään vaihtoehtoja pois."

Suomen Liperissä mitattiin vuonna 2010 37,2 asteen lämpötila, ja teoriassa Venäjälle sijoittuva voimakas korkeapaine voisi Mustosen mukaan nostaa lämpötilan Suomen mantereisilla alueilla yli 40 asteeseen.

"Meidän tulee muistaa näitä astelukuja mietittäessä, että suomalainen luonto eliöstöineen on ääreislämpötiloille vielä herkempi kuin Lyttonissa. Esimerkiksi Lapissa palsasuot sulavat jo ja kylmään mukautuneet lajit ovat pulassa."

Tavallisenakin kesänä lämpötila nousee Lyttonin laaksossa 30 asteeseen. Kylän läpi virtaava Fraser-joki on tunnettu lohestaan, ja alueella asustavat alkuperäiskansat saapuvat kesäisin kanjonimaiseen laaksoon kuivattamaan lohta kuumassa ja kuivassa tuulessa.

Mutta 50 astetta on jotakin täysin ennenkuulumatonta. Ilmastotutkijat ovat yrittäneet varoittaa meitä pohjoisen kansoja juuri tällaisista äkillisistä lämpöaalloista, Mustonen sanoo.

"Silloin kun tällainen hyppäys tapahtuu kuin nyt Kanadassa, kyllä se on ihan tyrmäävä hetki pohjoiselle luonnolle."

50-asteinen ilma kuumentaa nopeasti jokiveden, vaikka se olisi juuri sulanut lumesta yläjuoksulla. Tilannetta pahentaa arktisen alueen aurinko, joka ei tahdo kesällä laskea lainkaan.

Vesien kuumenemisesta on kokemusta Suomestakin. Vuoden 2018 hellekesänä Mustonen kollegoineen mittasi Inarin kunnassa virtaavasta Näätämöjoesta 24-asteista vettä, vaikka ilma ei ollut kuin 30-asteista.

"Sitä pidetään jo kuoleman rajana lohille ja muille arktisille kaloille", Mustonen kertoo.

"Tällainen lämpöaalto on puhdasta myrkkyä kaloille, jotka vaativat kylmää, happirikasta vettä."

Jokikalat ovat suomalaisille rakkaita, ja samoin on Kanadassa. Kanadan länsirannikon tuntumassa elävien alkuperäiskansojen elämä on kietoutunut lohen ympärille niin, ettei perinteinen elämäntapa onnistu ilman niitä.

"Heille olisi aika totaalinen olemassaolon kysymys, jos lohta ei enää olisi", Mustonen sanoo.

Ilmastotutkijoiden konsensus on, että ilmastonmuutos on suuri ajuri Lyttonin lämpöaallon taustalla, Mustonen toteaa.

Ekosysteemin tuho Kanadan länsirannikolla on kuitenkin alkanut jo kauan ennen tämän kesän helteitä. Normaalitilassa Lyttonin kuivaa kuumuutta nimittäin lievittäisi rannikon laaja lauhkean vyöhykkeen sademetsä. Muun muassa jättituijista ja lännendouglaskuusista koostuva aarniometsä ulottui vielä 1900-luvun alkupuolella pitkälle sisämaahan, mutta nykyisin siitä on hakkuiden jäljiltä pystyssä vain viitisen prosenttia.

Metsän puuttuessa mikään ei hillitse ilmastonmuutoksen mukanaan tuomia äärimmäisiä sääolosuhteita. Mustonen selittää mekanismin yksinkertaisella pienemmän mittakaavan esimerkillä: Kuvittele varjoinen puro puiden keskellä, ja sitten se, ettei niitä puita ole.

Tämä on opetus myös suomalaisille, Mustonen huomauttaa. Meillä vanhaa metsää yhä on, mutta sitä kaadetaan minkä ehditään.

"Tutkijoiden tehtävä ei ole tehdä politiikkaa, mutta usein joudun maailmalla perustelemaan, miksi Suomi hakkaa Inarissa 400-vuotiasta ikimetsää. Tieteen näkökulmasta metsän rooli luonnon monimuotoisuudessa on selviö."

Ilmastotutkijat puhuvat tipping pointeista tai luhistumista eli tapahtumista, jotka sysäävät luonnon kierron peruuttamattomasti raiteiltaan. Eniten on kirjoitettu Amazonin sademetsän tuhosta ja Grönlannin jäätiköiden sulamisesta, mutta myös Kanadan ja Siperian lämpöaallot ja niiden aiheuttama tuho muodostavat mahdollisen luhistuman.

"Arktiset luontojärjestelmät eivät kestä 50:tä astetta. Siinä alkaa ihmisen kroppakin jo tuhoutua", Mustonen sanoo.

Mustonen lukeutuu kuitenkin siihen joukkoon, joka näkee ihmiskunnalle vielä korjausliikkeen mahdollisuuksia. Siihen vaadittaisiin hänestä ainakin hiilivarastojen varjelemista ja vahingoitettujen ekosysteemien korjaamista. Havumetsävyöhykkeen luonto on onneksi eri tavalla uusiutumiskykyistä kuin sademetsät, Mustonen sanoo.

"Suomen osalta meillä on kansallisesti isoja toivelistoja - kunhan Itämeri säästyy, Lappi säästyy, saimaannorpat säästyvät. Olen yrittänyt tuoda esille sitä, että Suomen maankäyttö on näihin tavoitteisiin nähden liian kovaa."

Sekä Kanadassa että Suomessa pitäisi Mustosen mukaan äkkiä ryhtyä ennallistamaan jokien valuma-alueita, jotta luonnolla olisi lämpötilan kohotessa resilienssiä selviytyä. Ja sitten olisi jätettävä vanhat metsät ja suot rauhaan.

"Onko meillä kykyä kosketella näitä kipeimpiä kysymyksiä?" Mustonen kysyy.

"Lytton väläyttää, miltä tulevaisuutemme voi näyttää, mutta vielä ei olla siellä."

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Ilmastonmuutos | Kanada on liekeissä, ja sen pitäisi olla viimeinen varoitusmerkki Suomelle, sanoo ilmastotutkija: "Tyrmäävä hetki pohjoiselle luonnolle"

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Lyttonin maisemat väräyttävät suomalaisen sisintä: tummanvihreät havupuut reunustavat kirkkaiden pohjoisten jokien risteykseen perustettua kylää. Lohet nousevat kesäkaudella kylmässä ja happirikkaassa vedessä pitkälle yläjuoksuun. Siellä täällä jääkauden jälkeensä jättämissä muodoissa erottuu noin 5 000 vuotta vanhoja kalliomaalauksia, aivan kuin Saimaan Astuvansalmella. Mutta nyt Lytton on tulessa.

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FINLAND'S climate law reform: 2030 emissions target of at least a 60 percent cut from 1990 levels vs more ambitious targets such as Germany's 65 percent, the UK's 68 percent, Denmark's 70 percent and Scotland's 75 percent.

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FINLAND'S climate law reform: 2030 emissions target of at least a 60 percent cut from 1990 levels vs more ambitious targets such as Germany's 65 percent, the UK's 68 percent, Denmark's 70 percent and Scotland's 75 percent.

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Image: Petteri Bülow / Yle

The government has unveiled its plan to revise the 2015 Climate Act. On Friday it sent the draft out for a round of comment from various agencies and local authorities, as well as from the public.

The new legislation would enshrine Finland's target of carbon neutrality by 2035 in law. According to the centre-left cabinet, this is in line with the country's obligations under EU and other international climate goals.

The new wording also requires future governments to work toward the 2035 goal.

The updated Climate Act is to be expanded with targets for reducing carbon emissions for 2030 and 2040. The 2050 target is to be updated. The goals are based on recommendations by the Finnish Climate Change Panel, an independent board of scientists.

The draft sets out a carbon neutrality path to slash emissions according to the agreed timetable. It also adds targets for land use and the bolstering of carbon sinks.

Youth and indigenous voices "have been heard"

The government of Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) plans to present the bill to Parliament for ratification this autumn and wrap up the process by year's end.

The Environment Ministry notes that reform of the Climate Act began with extensive consultations in late 2019, gathering the views of citizens and stakeholders on the reform of the Climate Act.

"The views of the Sámi and young people in particular have been heard," the ministry said in a statement.

Pirita Näkkäläjärvi, a Member of the Sámi Parliament, noted in a tweet on Saturday that the plan calls for setting up a Sámi Climate Council, which she said "would strengthen the knowledge base and identify key issues for the promotion of [indigenous] culture in the preparation of plans."

FANC: "A step in the right direction but insufficient"

Since the draft was released on Friday, various groups and experts have weighed in on it.

The country's largest environmental NGO, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC), called the draft "a step in the right direction, but insufficient".

"The reform is one of the most important means for this government to combat global warming. This summer has seen serious signs, both domestically and globally, of the effects of the climate crisis, and reform of the climate law can no longer be delayed," the group said in a statement.

Last month was the hottest June in Finnish history, while last year brought the highest number of hot days ever recorded.

"It's good that the bill includes a carbon neutrality target in 2035 and carbon negativity thereafter. It's also good that the bill contains binding emission reduction targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050. In 2050, Finland's emissions must be significantly lower than its carbon sinks," said FANC conservation expert Liisa Toopakka.

The association called for the bill to include more concrete, detailed means and goals, including a 2030 target for carbon sinks, which could lead to restrictions on logging, for instance.

It also demanded a larger role for the independent Finnish Climate Change Panel, stressing that climate policy and legislation must be science-based.

Tynkkynen: Weaker than 2008 UK law

Oras Tynkkynen, senior advisor on sustainability at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, former Green MP and Climate Policy Specialist in the Prime Minister's Office, published a detailed response to the proposal in a series of tweets.

Asserting that original 2015 climate law was "very weak," He wrote that the update "seems partly successful, partly incomplete and partly just frustrating" and "only goes halfway in many respects".

"In many crucial respects, it falls far short in international comparisons. In fact, the UK's climate law was stronger back in 2008 than Finland's 2021 law," Tynkkynen said.

He compared the 2030 emissions target of at least a 60 percent cut from 1990 levels to more ambitious targets such as Germany's 65 percent, the UK's 68 percent, Denmark's 70 percent and Scotland's 75 percent.

In Tynkkynen's view, the reform should obligate local authorities to take responsibility for their own emissions, which Sitra says make up more than half of the national total.

Under the current wording, he said, "municipalities would still not need to set emission targets, let alone targets for carbon neutrality," nor would they be required to develop local climate strategies. According to a Sitra study published in May, one third of Finland's municipalities have yet to set any climate targets.

The proposed reform is open for public comment until 6 September.

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Climate Act reform draws mixed response: "Partly successful, partly just frustrating"

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The government has unveiled its plan to revise the 2015 Climate Act. On Friday it sent the draft out for a round of comment from various agencies and local authorities, as well as from the public. The new legislation would enshrine Finland's target of carbon neutrality by 2035 in law.

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Record-breaking temperatures mean we must change the way we talk about the climate emergency

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Record-breaking temperatures mean we must change the way we talk about the climate emergency

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New normal. Record-breaking. Unprecedented.

In recent days, as Western Canada and the United States have been broiling under a climate-fuelled heat crisis, all sorts of superlatives have been used to describe never-before-seen temperatures: the British Columbia community of Lytton hit a mind-boggling 49.5 C on June 29, breaking all-time temperature records three days in a row.

People are understandably shocked and scared by those numbers. But should this have come as a surprise? No. Scientists have been warning about the link between longer, more intense heat events and climate change for over 40 years. The language of "normals" and "new records" is rapidly becoming meaningless.

But the notion that humanity should have known, or should have done something about the crisis earlier - that we should be ashamed for our lack of action - is unhelpful for dealing with the climate crisis.

Talking climate

So, what's a better, more helpful approach to communicating climate change?

The first thing to do is to spend more time talking about climate change. There is far too little discussion around this issue in the public sphere. Global heating is the biggest emergency the planet has ever faced, but one would not know it reading or listening to the news.

Last year, stories about climate change represented just 0.4 per cent of all major U.S. broadcast news coverage. In 2019, it was 0.7 per cent. Even in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave stretching from California to Yukon, references to climate change are few and far between.

Information deficit model

Ironically, one of the biggest blind spots has to do with how information about this issue is shared with the public.

The conventional approach relies upon what's known as the " information deficit model." The deficit model builds on the assumption that people will take action on climate change if they have more information about it.

Read more: 3 ways cities can prepare for climate emergencies

This information-based approach has shaped all sorts of communication, from public safety ads on drinking and driving to news reporting about climate and other important issues.

Unfortunately, the relationship between how much people know and how they act is not always linear. Feeding more facts to someone who is highly politically motivated to dismiss climate change will not convince them to pay more attention to the problem.

Climate change is a tricky story to wrap one's head around. It can feel too big, too scary and too difficult for any one person to fix. Information, while important, is not always enough.

For there to be engagement with this subject and, by extension, political action, the climate crisis must feel personal, relatable, understandable and, most importantly, solvable.

Charts and graphs - even polar bears - rarely achieve that goal. Eighty-three per cent of Canadians agree that the Earth is getting warmer. But just 47 per cent think climate change will harm them personally.

To have people connect on climate, we need to have more conversations about how people are working to solve it and how those solutions are improving their quality of life where they live. These conversations foist an otherwise abstract, intangible and scary subject into the realm of the everyday - and make it feel solvable.

Solutions matter

Environmental communicators have long pointed to an excessive use of fear messaging around climate change as one of the main problems with engaging the public on this subject.

The challenge is to pair fear messaging with information about efficacy, namely what people can actually do to mitigate the fear. The combination of fear and efficacy leads to what is known as " danger control," actions to mitigate the danger, as opposed to "fear control," actions to shut down the fear.

In the case of COVID-19, the sense of efficacy was clear: hand washing, social distancing, masking. With climate change, efficacy information is far less obvious, and more difficult to act upon.

It's often argued that the large emitters, notably fossil fuel producers, are the ones that harbour the most blame, and are responsible for cleaning up the mess. The Guardian points out that 100 companies are responsible for 71 per cent of emissions.

Yes, it's clear the world needs to stop burning fossil fuels - oil, gas and coal. But to get there, individuals can also set examples of what pro-environmental behaviour looks like.

It can be as simple as posting photos to social media from community cleanup drives, nature walks or posts about any kind of pro-environmental behaviour, such as taking transit. This form of communication - as opposed to images that promote a high-carbon lifestyle - normalizes the urgency, importance and possibility of protecting the Earth.

Some of the most effective communicators are TV news meteorologists, who often have loyal followers. More of them are discussing ways the climate crisis is being addressed where people live.

Seeing is believing

Most communication around risk, builds on the standard of moral injunctions - that one should or must act to do something, or else. For example, a park sign might tell visitors not to feed the ducks because human food is bad for them. And yet, visitors keep feeding the ducks.

Instead, communicators should rely on "descriptive social norms," descriptions of behaviour that others, like them, are already doing and benefiting them.

In the United Kingdom, a 2015 campaign urged people to "Take your litter home, other people do." It was more likely to reduce illegal littering than signs that said "Please keep your park clean by not littering."

Read more: 5 ways families can help tackle climate change

Solutions, notably in the form of stories about people and communities taking action to solve the climate crisis, are among the most effective ways of communicating the emergency.

The National Observer's "First Nations Forward" series is a great example of this type of reporting. Story after story details how First Nations communities in British Columbia are leading the way in the transition to a renewable-energy future.

Mainstream news media outlets, like the one I work for, Global News, are also spending more time on climate and rethinking how they cover it. One recent national story reported on the massive energy transition already under way in Alberta.

Such stories about change that is working send a message that action to mitigate the climate crisis by ordinary people is doable, normal, empowering and desirable. They energize and mobilize members of the public ready to take action, by providing visual examples of who is leading the way.

They also move the conversation beyond the conventional emphasis on skeptics and deniers, and normalize pro-environmental values and behaviours for the growing number of people who are already alarmed or concerned about the climate emergency.

Far from driving the fear narrative, stories of climate solutions unlock people's sense of efficacy and agency in the face of impending danger. In other words, they engage the public on climate change by doing what all good communication does: meeting people where they are at, through a mobilizing story.

This is storytelling 101: engaging audiences, not turning them away, as most climate reports do.

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Record-breaking temperatures mean we must change the way we talk about the climate emergency

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New normal. Record-breaking. Unprecedented. In recent days, as Western Canada and the United States have been broiling under a climate-fuelled heat crisis, all sorts of superlatives have been used to describe...

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Most buildings were designed for an earlier climate – here’s what will happen as global warming accelerates

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Most buildings were designed for an earlier climate – here’s what will happen as global warming accelerates

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Climate change will affect every aspect of our lives - including the buildings we live and work in. Most people in the US, for example, spend about 90% of their time indoors. Climate change is fundamentally altering the environmental conditions in which these buildings are designed to function.

Architects and engineers design buildings and other structures, like bridges, to operate within the parameters of the local climate. They're built using materials and following design standards that can withstand the range of temperatures, rainfall, snow and wind that are expected, plus any geological issues such as earthquakes, subsidence and ground water levels.

When any of those parameters are exceeded, chances are some aspect of the building will fail. If there are high winds, some roof tiles may be ripped off. If, after days of heavy rain, the water table rises, the basement might flood. This is normal, and these problems cannot be designed out entirely. After the event has passed, the damage can be repaired and additional measures can reduce the risk of it happening again.

But climate change will breed conditions where these parameters are exceeded more often and to a far greater degree. Some changes, like higher average air temperatures and humidity, will become permanent. What were previously considered once in a century floods may become a regular occurrence.

Some of these impacts are fairly obvious. Houses will be more prone to overheating, putting the lives of residents at risk, which is what has happened during the recent "heat dome" over North America. Flooding will happen more often and inundate greater areas, to the point that some places might have to be abandoned. The village of Fairbourne in Wales has already been identified as a likely candidate. Failure to act on both of these threats in the UK was highlighted in a recent report by the Climate Change Committee.

To some extent, these impacts will be localised and containable, with fairly simple remedies. For example, overheating can be reduced by shading windows with awnings or blinds, good insulation, and ample ventilation. Perhaps more worrying are the insidious effects of climate change which gradually undermine the core functions of a building in less obvious ways.

Termites and melting asphalt

More intense wind and rain will cause external cladding to deteriorate more rapidly and leak more often. Higher temperatures will expand the regions where some insects can live. That includes timber-eating termites that can cause major structural damage, or malaria-carrying mosquitoes which living spaces must be redesigned to protect us from.

Attapon Thana/Shutterstock

Materials expand as they get hotter, especially metals, which can cause them to buckle once their designed tolerance is exceeded. For one skyscraper in Shenzhen, China, high temperatures were partially blamed for causing the structure to shake, forcing its evacuation, as the steel frame stretched in the heat. Extreme temperatures can even cause materials to melt, resulting in roads "bleeding" as the surface layer of bitumen softens.

Subsidence - when the ground below a structure gives way, causing it to crack or collapse - is also expected to happen more often in a warmer world. Buildings with foundations in clay soils are particularly vulnerable, as the soils swell when they absorb water, then harden and shrink as they dry out. Changing rainfall patterns will exacerbate this. Over the next 50 years, for example, more than 10% of properties in Britain will be affected by subsidence.

Concrete cancer

Perhaps the biggest concern is how climate change will affect reinforced concrete, one of the most widely used materials on Earth. Used in everything from skyscrapers and bridges to the lintels above windows in homes, reinforced concrete is made by placing steel rods within a mould and pouring wet concrete in. Once dry, this produces incredibly strong structures.

But a warmer wetter climate will play havoc with the durability of this material. When the steel inside the concrete gets wet it rusts and expands, cracking the concrete and weakening the structure in a process sometimes referred to as "concrete cancer".

Arayan Rattanaphan/Shutterstock

Buildings in coastal areas are especially susceptible as the chloride in salt water accelerates rusting. Rising sea levels will raise the water table and make it saltier, affecting building foundations, while salt-spray will spread further on stronger winds.

At the same time, the concrete is affected by carbonation, a process where carbon dioxide from the air reacts with the cement to form a different chemical element, calcium carbonate. This lowers the pH of the concrete, making the steel even more prone to corrosion. Since the 1950s, global CO₂ levels have increased from about 300 parts per million in the atmosphere to well over 400. More CO₂ means more carbonation.

The tragic recent collapse of an apartment building in Miami in the US may be an early warning of this process gaining speed. While the exact cause of the collapse is still being investigated, some are suggesting it might be linked to climate change.

EFE News Agency/Alamy Stock Photo

The local mayor, Charles Burkett, summed up the bewilderment many felt:

It just doesn't happen. You don't see buildings falling down in America.

Whether or not the link to climate change proves to be true, it is nevertheless a wake up call to the fragility of our buildings. It should also be seen as a clear demonstration of a critical point: wealth does not protect against the effects of climate change. Rich nations have the financial clout to adapt more rapidly and to mitigate these impacts, but they can't stop them at the border. Climate change is indiscriminate. Buildings are vulnerable to these impacts no matter where in the world they are, and if anything, the modern buildings of developed countries have more things in them that can go wrong than simpler traditional structures.

The only option is to begin adapting buildings to meet the changing parameters in which they are operating. The sooner we begin retrofitting existing buildings and constructing new ones that can withstand climate change, the better.

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Most buildings were designed for an earlier climate - here's what will happen as global warming accelerates

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Climate change will affect every aspect of our lives - including the buildings we live and work in. Most people in the US, for example, spend about 90% of their time indoors. Climate change is fundamentally altering the environmental conditions in which these buildings are designed to function.

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On 28th June 2021, Ellen Forsström writes in Finland's Swedish Hufvudstadsbladet about overheating in Finnish homes based on an interview with Sofie Pelsmakers.

Rough English translation below:

"Finnish houses can not withstand the heat - they are built to keep the heat inside
If you feel that your house or apartment is even warmer than it is outdoors, then you are not wrong. In Finland, people have always invested in building houses that keep the heat in and the cold out, but how does it work when you want to keep the heat out and the cold in instead ?With warmer summers, the shortcomings in the Finnish way of building houses are becoming increasingly clear. People are sweating in their compact city apartments and do not know how to cool them down. Sometimes solutions such as air conditioning or a fan can help with the stack, but it's basically about how buildings are planned.

A group of researchers at the University of Tampere is currently delving into precisely these issues. The researchers also want to find out how to avoid similar problems in the future and what solutions can be applied in older houses.​

We in Finland build our houses to keep the heat in, this is a smart way from both an economic and ecological perspective. But as the climate is constantly getting warmer, new solutions must be found for us to cope with the summers, says Sofie Pelsmakers, who leads the research group ASUTUT.
​
Do not fan the solution of the future
If everyone is to get external equipment to cool down houses that are planned to keep the heat in, we will face two problems: an unreasonable price tag and climate concerns.Air conditioning costs a significant amount, which not everyone can afford. Should the less well-off then suffer more than others from the summer heat? Nature will also suffer if we start consuming the same amount of energy for cooling in the summers as for heating in the winters.
- We can not only turn to technical solutions, we must go to the root of the problem which is how the houses are built, says Pelsmakers

The research group led by Pelsmakers has come up with some long-term solutions that can both be applied in older buildings and come to mind when building new. Windows in Finnish houses are the big culprit. They are too small and cannot be opened enough. - Right now, only smaller apartments are being built, in them there are often problems with not being able to have cross-sections. This could be solved with the help of larger windows, says Pelsmakers. She also highlights the issue of shadow. More shade is needed.
- Blinds are the best solution, you should invest in sunscreen that is placed outside the windows. They keep out up to 80 percent of the heat.

- More vegetation next to buildings would also make the situation better, but planting a tree outside your window is not directly the fastest solution, she says.
- In urban planning, green areas should be given priority. Parks or green roofs are good solutions. Next to a park it is always cooler, because the vegetation does not absorb the heat.

Pelsmakers also point out that dark surfaces, such as asphalt or other stone surfaces that are plentiful in cities, absorb heat. Therefore, cities should take the model of the white houses around the Mediterranean and invest in more bright surfaces.

You can read a summary here in FIN, and more here (Heidi Sukanen's masters thesis research) and we are researching this issue in our HOMES4FUTURE project through monitoring and modelling homes and also as part of the Academy of Finland funded RESCUE project.
​

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ASUTUT researcher interviewed about overheating in Finnish homes

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On 28th June 2021, Ellen Forsström writes in Finland's Swedish Hufvudstadsbladet about overheating in Finnish homes based on an interview with Sofie Pelsmakers. Rough English translation below: "Finnish houses can not withstand the heat - they are built to keep the heat inside If you feel that your house or apartment is even warmer than it is outdoors, then you are not wrong.

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A searing heatwave that settled over western Canada for several days has been blamed for helping to cause the deaths of dozens of people in the Vancouver area.

With a new record temperature for Canada of 47.9C (118F) set on Monday, police in the Burnaby area of Vancouver said they responded to 25 sudden-death calls in a 24-hour period starting on Monday.

The deaths were still under investigation and many of the deceased were seniors, Cpl Mike Kalanj of Burnaby Royal Canadian Mounted police said.

Temperatures in the Vancouver area reached just under 32C (90F) (32 Celsius) Monday, but the humidity made it feel close to 40C (104F) in areas that were not near water, Environment Canada said.

The record-breaking heatwave could ease over parts of British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories by Wednesday, but any reprieve for the prairie provinces was further off, forecasters said.

In Vancouver, the police department said it had redeployed dozens of officers and asked the public to call 911 only for emergencies because heat-related deaths had depleted front-line resources and delayed response times.

"Vancouver has never experienced heat like this, and sadly dozens of people are dying because of it," Sgt Steve Addison said in a news release. "Our officers are stretched thin, but we're still doing everything we can to keep people safe."

On Tuesday afternoon, he said, police had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since the heatwave that has spread across the pacific north-west of the Americas began on Friday.

"The vast majority of these cases are related to the heat," Addison said.

In a typical four-day period in British Columbia, there would be around 130 deaths reported but between Friday and Monday the total was 233, CBC reported.

Ingrid Jarrett, chief executive of the British Columbia Hotel Association, said residents in parts of the Lower Mainland, Victoria and the Okanagan regions had been booking air-conditioned rooms so they can continue working and also get some sleep.

Environment Canada said the weather system shattered 103 heat records across British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and Northwest Territories on Monday. Those records include the new Canadian high temperature of 47.9C at Lytton, British Columbia, smashing the previous record set in the same village a day earlier.

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Canada heatwave: dozens dead as searing plus-40C temperatures grip west

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A searing heatwave that settled over western Canada for several days has been blamed for helping to cause the deaths of dozens of people in the Vancouver area. With a new record temperature for Canada of 47.9C (118F) set on Monday, police in the Burnaby area of Vancouver said they responded to 25 sudden-death calls in a 24-hour period starting on Monday.

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“compared to warmer climates, Finland's energy requirements for cooling are relatively low. Per-household cooling costs in the country amount to about one euro for each day with temperatures above 25 degrees.” 

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“compared to warmer climates, Finland's energy requirements for cooling are relatively low. Per-household cooling costs in the country amount to about one euro for each day with temperatures above 25 degrees.” 

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Image: Jyrki Ojala

The increased use of home cooling units in Finland has at least partially prompted an uptick in electricity use during the recent heatwave, according to national grid operator Fingrid.

"When it's very hot, as it was this week, electricity consumption rises. Normally, power consumption decreases as it gets warmer, but in such severe heat it began to increase," Fingrid unit manager Jonne Jäppinen said.

Electricity use starts to rise when temperatures exceed 22 degrees Celsius, and increases as it gets warmer, Jäppinen explained.

"Electricity consumption varies a lot, depending on the time of day, whether it's summer or winter, but there is an additional load of three percentage points when temperatures get closer to 30 degrees," he said.

Part of the reason for the power usage uptick, according to Jäppinen, is that air source heat pumps are increasingly being installed and used in households across the country.
Story continues after photo

Image: Jyrki Ojala

Air source heat pumps (ASHP) can be used to cool or heat indoor areas more efficiently than traditional air conditioning systems or furnaces, but are generally more efficient when heating.

The units cool air by moving heat from inside a house to the outdoors, rather than pumping in generated cool air, like air conditioners do.

Around 800,000 ASHP units have been installed in homes in Finland, and their numbers continue to grow at a pace of about 80,000 per year. There are also models made exclusively for cooling purposes, which are being purchased at a rate of about 5,000 units per year.

The cooling units are becoming increasingly popular, according to Pekka Malkki, from ASHP installation firm Vantaan ilmalämpö.

"A lot of pumps are being installed in multi-storey and terraced houses these days which are purely cooling units. [Those homes] are usually on district heat and do not require additional heating. Now, in hot weather, the focus is almost exclusively on installing cooling equipment, and they're being put in homes across Finland as quickly as installers are able to," Malkki explained.

However, compared to warmer climates, Finland's energy requirements for cooling are relatively low. Per-household cooling costs in the country amount to about one euro for each day with temperatures above 25 degrees.

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Heat pumps prompt energy use uptick during June heatwave

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The increased use of home cooling units in Finland has at least partially prompted an uptick in electricity use during the recent heatwave, according to national grid operator Fingrid. "When it's very hot, as it was this week, electricity consumption rises.

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According to the Climate Change Panel's estimate, the carbon footprint of households must be slashed by as much as 70 percent in order for Finland to achieve its 2035 target. This includes housing, mobility, food and other goods and services.

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According to the Climate Change Panel's estimate, the carbon footprint of households must be slashed by as much as 70 percent in order for Finland to achieve its 2035 target. This includes housing, mobility, food and other goods and services.

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Image: Derrick Frilund / Yle

Finland's climate emissions fell to a record low last year, according to the Annual Climate Report prepared under the Environment Ministry. The report, issued on Wednesday, monitors the implementation of Finland's emission reduction targets.

The record reduction in emissions is largely due to the effects of the pandemic. For example, traffic decreased last year while carbon sequestration increased as a result of reduced logging.

In sectors covered by the EU's Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), emissions decreased by about 16 percent from the previous year, primarily due to less burning of coal and peat. Emissions trading covers the production of electricity and district heating, the pulp, paper, construction and chemical industries, and commercial aviation within the European Economic Area.

In areas outside the ETS, including transport, agriculture and heating of individual buildings, emissions decreased by three percent from the previous year.

According to the report, Finland's current measures to reduce emissions are insufficient. Finland's goal of being carbon neutral by 2035 will not be achieved unless new measures to reduce emissions are rapidly introduced in all sectors, the report indicates. According to the report, non-trading emissions in particular must be cut faster.

"We are going in the right direction, but new climate measures are needed. We are currently preparing our most important climate plans: the Medium-term Climate Change Policy Plan that extends until 2035, the Climate and Energy Strategy and the climate change plan for the land-use sector. In this work, we must find measures that will enable us to achieve Finland's goal of being carbon neutral in 2035. It is also important to ensure that the climate measures are implemented in a way that is fair," Minister of the Environment and Climate Krista Mikkonen (Green) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Household carbon footprint must be cut by up to 70%

According to the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), emissions from household consumption shrank between 2010 and 2015, but have stayed roughly the same since then.

Emissions from consumption as a whole have increased by four percent since 2000. According to the Climate Change Panel's estimate, the carbon footprint of households must be slashed by as much as 70 percent in order for Finland to achieve its 2035 target. This includes housing, mobility, food and other goods and services.

Emissions from transport fell by six percent from the previous year, which is too slow a decline in relation to the target. A fifth of Finland's climate emissions are generated by transport, the report estimates.

The number of kilometres driven has started to decrease slightly in the heavily populated Helsinki region. Motorway driving decreased during the pandemic but is now on the rise again.

The number of electric cars is still small but growing, while the share of biofuels in transport fuel is increasing.

The biggest transport problem is that the phase-out of older, more polluting cars is slow, despite incentives for scrapping them and buying electric or other low-emission vehicles.

Emissions from buildings have been steadily declining, with last year's emissions falling due to a mild winter. The main drivers of lower heating emissions are improved energy efficiency and the phaseout of oil heating, which is to be accelerated by new subsidies for residential properties.

No significant decline in farm emissions yet

Agricultural emissions meanwhile have remained fairly stable for years despite billions of euros in investments aimed at reductions in recent years. Last year, they accounted for 14 percent of Finland's emissions.

According to the report, a number of measures to reduce agricultural emissions are in place or will be introduced soon. These include perennial cultivation, afforestation and increased biogas production.

Some of this will be paid for out of EU rural development funds, of which 30 percent are to be earmarked for each member state's environmental and climate measures.

Meanwhile the EU's agricultural policy reform aims to direct 40 percent of EU agricultural funding toward climate action. It takes effect in 2023.

Finland is also planning measures to reduce food waste. In Finland, hundreds of millions of kilos of food are thrown in the trash every year, resulting in higher emissions.

Parliament is to discuss the report's recommendation after its summer recess. The Annual Climate Report is mandated by the Climate Change Act, which took effect in 2015.

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Finland: Record drop in emissions, but still not on track for 2035 target

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Finland's climate emissions fell to a record low last year, according to the Annual Climate Report prepared under the Environment Ministry. The report, issued on Wednesday, monitors the implementation of Finland's emission reduction targets. The record reduction in emissions is largely due to the effects of the pandemic.

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Image: Ismo Pekkarinen / AOP

Finland ranked first in this year's league table of sustainable development in more than 160 countries, according to a fresh report from the UN.

This year's ranking found that Finland had achieved - or had nearly achieved - the UN's goals on alleviating poverty, improving health, education, water, energy, peace, the rule of law and reducing inequality.

The report also noted that the biggest challenges still facing Finland include the fight against climate change, increasing sustainable consumption levels as well as its patterns of production and fighting the loss of biodiversity.

The annual ranking was carried out by the United Nation in cooperation with the Bertelsmann Foundation.

PM Marin: Still more to do

In a statement, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) - who is also the chair of Finland's sustainable development commission - said that the top ranking was a result of extensive work and collaboration from the country as a whole.

"We are proud of our ranking, but we still have a lot to do in order to achieve all of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The most crucial thing now is figuring out how we can safeguard our wellbeing within the limits of our planet's carrying capacity in the future," Marin said in the statement.

Finland has found itself among the top three countries in the rankings in previous years, but this was the first time it topped the list.

Just behind Finland in the rankings was Sweden in second place, with Denmark in third. Meanwhile, the countries of Liberia, Somalia, Chad, South Sudan and the Central African Republic were at the bottom of this year's rankings.

An executive summary of the report said that the Covid-19 pandemic had been a setback for sustainable development around the world, noting that the ranking's sustainability goals had declined from the previous year for the first time since the goals were adopted in 2015.

"The decline in SDG performance globally is likely underestimated in this year's report, with many indicators for 2020 not yet available due to time lags in international statistics. The pandemic has impacted all three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental," the summary stated.

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Finland leads in UN global sustainable development comparison

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Finland ranked first in this year's league table of sustainable development in more than 160 countries, according to a fresh report from the UN. This year's ranking found that Finland had achieved - or had nearly achieved - the UN's goals on alleviating poverty, improving health, education, water, energy, peace, the rule of law and reducing inequality.

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The Sustainable City programme coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment aims to accelerate the sustainable development of cities and municipalities in cooperation with ministries, municipal authorities and other parties interested in sustainable development.

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Our goal is to implement sustainable development in all the activities of cities and municipalities. This can be achieved by taking into account the various aspects of sustainable development in cooperation between the state, cities and municipalities.

Come join us on the journey towards vibrant cities and sustainable everyday life!

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Our goal is to implement sustainable development in all the activities of cities and municipalities. This can be achieved by taking into account the various aspects of sustainable development in cooperation between the state, cities and municipalities. Come join us on the journey towards vibrant cities and sustainable everyday life!

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The latest issue of the renowned architectural magazine DETAIL tackles a multitude of different sustainability aspects over more than 200 pages in a special jubilee issue

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In 1961, the Berlin Wall was built and John F. Kennedy took office as President of the United States of America. Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly into space. And in Munich, in the south of the Federal Republic of Germany, Detail was founded. For this very special issue celebrating the magazine's 60th birthday, instead of a nostalgic retrospective we opted to take stock of the present and look to the future of architecture. Our roadmap was provided by the pressing issue of climate protection and the earth's dwindling resources.

What is needed for true systemic change in the construction industry? The committed pioneers in our interviews make sober assessments, but also articulate their vision and demands for political action. "What can we do about the climate emergency?" we ask Michael Pawlyn of Architects Declare. Nora Sophie Griefahn from Cradle to Cradle (C2C) explains why we need to fundamentally rethink construction. Hermann Kaufmann considers the development of timber construction and its future. Anders Lendager, a pioneer of circular construction, focuses on the urban mines of the future. And Amandus Samsø Sattler of the German Sustain able Building Council (DGNB) has clear ideas of how architecture can be approached in an entirely new way.

For this issue, our exemplary projects are for climate-friendly building - regardless of their function, they share thoughtful design and sustainable construction methods, from office buildings built with single variety materials to low-tech architecture with reduced emissions. We also document compelling examples of Cradle to Cradle and Energy Plus concepts, which have been stringently implemented right down to the choice of materials and details. Do climate-friendly buildings ultimately depend on the attitudes of builders and architects? This conclusion is confirmed by the South Tyrolean architect and industrial designer Matteo Thun in our portrait.

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In 1961, the Berlin Wall was built and John F. Kennedy took office as President of the United States of America. Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly into space. And in Munich, in the south of the Federal Republic of Germany, Detail was founded.

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How has our thinking on the climate crisis changed?

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How has our thinking on the climate crisis changed?

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"Greenwashing is climate denial" says panelist Prof Naomi Oreskes.

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When the Guardian began reporting on the climate crisis 70 years ago, people were worried that warmer temperatures would make it harder to complain about the weather. Today it is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.

In the second special episode marking 200 years of the Guardian, Phoebe Weston is joined by Jonathan Watts, Prof Naomi Oreskes and Alice Bell to take a look at climate coverage over the years, how our understanding of the science has changed and how our attitudes and politics have shifted

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

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How has our thinking on the climate crisis changed? - podcast

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When the Guardian began reporting on the climate crisis 70 years ago, people were worried that warmer temperatures would make it harder to complain about the weather. Today it is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.

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Finland sees 9% emissions reduction in 2020-Carbon dioxide emissions dropped as Finland's shutdown closed borders and scaled back commutes.

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Finland sees 9% emissions reduction in 2020-Carbon dioxide emissions dropped as Finland's shutdown closed borders and scaled back commutes.

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Image: Markku Pitkänen / Yle

While it's difficult to draw conclusions on how the pandemic has directly impacted greenhouse gas emissions, preliminary figures from Statistics Finland suggest that reduced transport activity lowered emissions last year.

These findings indicate that Finland will meet its emission reduction commitments for the 2013 to 2020 period, the national number cruncher reported on Friday.

Greenhouse gas emissions shrank by nine percent last year from 2019, according to the agency, which said reduced traffic contributed to the decrease.

In addition to the exceptional circumstances triggered by the coronavirus crisis, a milder-than-usual winter and cyclical industrial fluctuations also impacted levels.

In total, greenhouse gases in 2020 amounted to 48.3 million tons of carbon dioxide, a nine percent reduction from the previous year.

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Finland sees 9% emissions reduction in 2020

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While it's difficult to draw conclusions on how the pandemic has directly impacted greenhouse gas emissions, preliminary figures from Statistics Finland suggest that reduced transport activity lowered emissions last year. These findings indicate that Finland will meet its emission reduction commitments for the 2013 to 2020 period, the national number cruncher reported on Friday.

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The Finnish capital will paint a cycling-themed mural and install new infrastructure

Nearly everybody knows that the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world are Copenhagen and Amsterdam. However, very few people know which cities follow. The capital of Finland has announced that it wants to change this by becoming recognised as the world's third best cycling city.

The most bicycle-friendly cities in the world are ranked by the Copenhagenize Index. According to this index, Helsinki is currently in tenth place. Now, it seeks to rise up the ranks with the launch of a new campaign aimed at encouraging cycling.

What will the new campaign feature?

In a press release, Helsinki announced that it will create a cycling-themed mural which will be painted in the railway underpass at Helsinginkatu. This mural will reflect the capital's goals by depicting the city alongside Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Its completion is expected to take place by the end of this month.

In addition to this, the municipality will also enhance its cycling infrastructure. Taking this further, it will install diagonal bins (bins at an angle) which will make it easier for cyclists to dispose of garbage whilst they cycle. In this way, the city not only makes the use of bicycles easier but also minimises littering.

It is important to stress that Helsinki's ultimate goal goes far beyond increasing the number of cyclists in the capital. That is, the municipality's goals are also linked to the environment and the creation of a city that is functional and safe.

The Cycling Coordinator at the City of Helsinki Oskari Kaupinmäki commented on the city's ambitions in a press release on the municipality's website: "Promoting cycling isn't a goal in itself, but a way to create a city that's safer, more comfortable and more functional. We want Helsinki to be an enjoyable city for everyone, no matter what mode of transport they use. By developing transport systems as a whole, we can make transport safer and more convenient for all Helsinki citizens."

The campaign will be carried through under the city's OmaStadi project: an initiative which allows residents to vote on what the city's budget should be used for. By setting this goal, Helsinki proves its dedication to creating a city that is safe and green.

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Helsinki wants to become the third most bicycle-friendly city in the world | TheMayor.EU

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The Finnish capital will paint a cycling-themed mural and install new infrastructure Nearly everybody knows that the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world are Copenhagen and Amsterdam. However, very few people know which cities follow. The capital of Finland has announced that it wants to change this by becoming recognised as the world's third best cycling city.

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Young people taking their countries to court over climate inaction 

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Young people taking their countries to court over climate inaction 

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Sofia Oliveira is one of six young Portuguese people who have filed a lawsuit against 33 countries with the European court of human rights, demanding that governments do more to reduce emissions and safeguard their future physical and mental wellbeing. Last October the Strasbourg-based court granted the case priority status.
After we announced that we were six youths from Portugal who were suing 33 countries for not doing enough to reduce emissions and fight climate change, the response was bigger than anything I had imagined. Media called from around the world. And it made me so happy and hopeful.

I've been worried about climate change for a long time. When I was 11 years old, my younger brother André, who is also one of the young people in this case, had a terrible asthma crisis. The weather was hot and dry, and he was suffocating.

Here in Portugal the effects of climate change are increasingly visible: heatwaves that cause water shortages and affect food production, and violent wildfires that give us anxiety. Sometimes I think, if climate change is already so extreme, what will it be like in the near future if we do nothing about it? So one of the most important reasons I'm involved in this case is to help my little brother have a good future, along with my parents, myself and the next generation.

Right now, the courts have told the governments that they need to reply by the end of May. The 33 countries tried to have the case dismissed, but the court said no. And we were so happy. Imagine, 33 of the biggest economies in the world saying, "We don't want this" and six youths saying, "We are going to do this."
As told to Ashifa Kassam. Saúl, who goes by his second name, Amaru, is one of seven Peruvian children who have filed a complaint against the Peruvian state for its alleged failure to adequately halt deforestation in the Amazon. They argue that their futures are severely compromised due to the climate crisis, particularly their right to enjoy a healthy environment, along with their rights to life, water, and health. The case was filed in December 2019, but has not progressed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I think we might win the case. I hope the case will make things right, that it will make countries lower their emissions and stop using so many fossil fuels. This case is revolutionary - it has shown that together our voice is strong and can reach the whole world.

We filed this lawsuit because the state does not really develop national policies to protect the environment. By raising our voice as children and teens, we can make the state listen to us and develop more concrete measures to combat climate change.

We were inspired by Greta Thunberg and the idea that children and teenagers can make a difference. We believe that the young should raise our voices when the adults don't, especially when our politicians are not the best.

In our Amazon, the main problem is deforestation. There are no measures to resolve this problem. The amount they cut down goes up every year, so if we don't halt this problem now, it will get worse and worse and be more difficult to stop.

Since I was little, I was taught about the problem of pollution and climate change, but I never thought about taking action because I assumed that politicians would take care of it, or I should grow up and become a professional to make changes. Then I realised I could do something as a teenager without letting any more time pass - I could take action.

You can witness climate change. Adults always tell you what the weather was like before; the seasons, for example, are more uncontrolled. How can it be that one day it is hot and the next day it is cold?

We are waiting for a response to the lawsuit because it is a long process. Plus, we have a lot of problems in the country. We are constantly in crisis, so I think it's not a priority at the moment.
As told to Dan Collyns. Raman-Middleton, who lives in south London, is one of the co-founders of the air pollution campaign Choked Up.
I think we can win. I almost take it for granted that we will because our cause is a just cause. It's the first lawsuit of its kind in Peru and I hope, for that reason, that it might be the beginning of something and the first of many more.

I went to primary school with Ella Kissi-Debrah [who died as a result of air pollution] and, like her, grew up just off the South Circular road in London, so I have lived with the reality of air pollution all my life.

I met the three other founders of Choked Up - who are all young women of colour from south London - on the Advocacy Academy programme last year. It was great to meet people who, like me, felt so passionately about clean air and the environment and who also recognised how people of colour were being disproportionately affected by the environmental crisis - whether in the UK with air pollution, or in the global south with the impacts of climate change.

Too often our experiences are overlooked by an environment movement that is predominantly white and middle class. As young people of colour, we found that frustrating. But I am hopeful this can change because young people are becoming more aware of the intersectionality of climate justice.
As told to Matthew Taylor. Jamie Margolin organis ed a youth climate march at 15 and co-founded the youth climate action movement This Is Zero Hour at 16. She is a plaintiff in the Our Children's Trust lawsuit against the government in her home state of Washington, US.
There is a growing understanding that it is not just as simple as "solving or fixing" climate change - there is a whole system, a whole multitude of other issues around racial and social justice that are intertwined with the climate crisis. Choked Up aims to make those connections and foreground the experiences of young people of colour. We chose air pollution as our campaign because all four of us live in heavily polluted areas and see every day the often devastating impact it has on our communities.

When I first started, I was kind of under the illusion that Democrat equals climate action. I didn't understand that just because I lived in a blue state, it didn't mean my leaders would automatically listen to me.

Well, I stepped out of that reality really quickly. I joined a lawsuit suing the state of Washington for denying my generation our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by continuing to worsen the climate crisis. But lawsuits take years. I couldn't just wait around for the courts to do their thing.

It was a perfect storm - of absolute hell. There were the wildfires that blew over the city of Seattle, covering it in a thick layer of smog. It was really scary because the Pacific north-west is known for amazing air quality - it's clean and crisp. Suddenly that was gone. I couldn't breathe, to the extent that it hurt. And then there was Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Harvey, all of these climate disasters. And the last president pulled us out of the Paris climate accords. It was all of these things that came together.

This was before Fridays for Future, before Greta Thunberg started striking. Youth climate mobilisations were not in vogue. The Standing Rock movement, which was big at the time, was started by indigenous young people, so it's not like young people weren't mobilised. It just wasn't something people paid attention to.

When I was 15 years old, I found other youth activists on social media, and we organised 25 youth climate marches, with the main one in Washington, DC. We also had a youth climate lobby day around the country. The movement has changed the culture. Things that were niche are now common knowledge. Greta and I are now legal adults. We have to understand there's wisdom in each generation.
As told to Emily Holden. One of China's only youth climate activists to take part in Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion activities in recent years, before beginning to inspire a handful of others to take similar action.
I identify as a lesbian. When you're part of a marginalised community, you have to actively fight for justice for your community, while also fighting for climate justice. I'm in film school right now, and I'm not studying to make climate documentaries. The thing I'm super passionate about is LGBT representation in the media, and storytelling. People are often very surprised when I tell them my dream job is to write gay Disney princess movies.

I have dreams beyond just trying to stop the end of the world. No one wants to think about climate change. Everyone has other dreams. When I was a little child, I wasn't like, "Some day I hope to narrowly escape planetary destruction." That wasn't my dream. But I'm doing this because I have to, for survival.

Ou Hongyi, also known as Howey Ou, demonstrates for climate action, even though demonstrations are forbidden in China without explicit approval of the authorities. In October, Howey sat alone in front of a hotel for more than 10 hours to protest about the lack of ambition in the hotel industry in China to reduce carbon emissions.

But while some youths in China have become energised by Ou's activism, many attempts to take part in protests have been scuttled, including plans for protests on 19 March.

"Police interfered before the action happened," Ou said. "Two activists I know of went to Chengdu, but their families were called and they warned them, or tried to scare them, to not take part. They were told to go to the Chengdu NGO management office to 'provide information' separately in the days before the action, then on Friday morning [19 March] they were taken to the police station for formal interrogation, required to sign documents, had their DNA samples taken, and were released that night. So they did not go out on the streets.

"The next week, when they returned home, the police met them at the train station like old friends, and they were visited again by police later in the week."

"Other than these, I spoke with other students who organised at their schools but they now have no more intention to organise any Fridays for Future actions. They've been warned by their schools or had conflicts with their parents and stopped."
As told to Michael Standaert.
She is currently in Europe, and recently went on hunger strike in protest at industrial policies there. She remains defiantly positive about the role that protest can play.

"This is not about how much suppression we received, but the bright part is that although we expect difficulty, we still dare to exist. We dare to tell the truth about the climate and ecological emergency, we dare to challenge the capitalist and consumeristic world. We refuse to be prisoners of injustice."

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The young people taking their countries to court over climate inaction

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Sofia Oliveira is one of six young Portuguese people who have filed a lawsuit against 33 countries with the European court of human rights, demanding that governments do more to reduce emissions and safeguard their future physical and mental wellbeing. Last October the Strasbourg-based court granted the case priority status.

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Opinion piece about recent acquittal of climate activists 

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Opinion piece about recent acquittal of climate activists 

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n the face of resistance by juries, surely there is a strong case to halt all the pending trials of Extinction Rebellion activists? With nearly a thousand trials still waiting to be heard in the courts, six members of the group were recently acquitted at Southwark crown court in XR's second trial by a jury.

They had been charged with criminal damage against the oil giant Shell, yet the jury decided that all six were not guilty, despite the judge ruling that only one had any kind of defence in law.

For the police, prosecutors and judge, this was doubtless a "perverse" verdict. But the warning signs had been there. In XR's first crown court trial in December 2019, in which the defendants also admitted their actions and pleaded not guilty, the jury stated they had only followed the judge's direction to convict " with regret ".

It seems that the law is out of step with the public, and that there could be many more such "perverse" verdicts by rebellious juries.

The six acquitted defendants took action outside Shell's London headquarters during XR's first mass protests in April 2019. They blocked doors, climbed on to the entrance canopy, broke several windows and painted "Shell Knew", "Lies" and "Climate Criminals" on the outside of the building.

Their action was reportedly designed to create more than £5,000 worth of damage, to ensure the case would be escalated to the crown court and heard by a jury, rather than in a magistrates court. Their hope was that on learning why they felt they had to break the law, a jury of their fellow citizens would reach the decision it did. It was a courageous and risky strategy - for they each faced a maximum five-year prison sentence or a £10,000 fine.

In the two years it took for the case to come to trial, there's been a major shift in public awareness about the scale of the challenges we face from global heating and ecosystem collapse, not least as a result of XR protests, as well as strikes by school students and increasingly desperate warnings from scientists and public figures such as David Attenborough.

The two-week Shell trial at Southwark was a case study in what can happen when environmental activists put their trust in the people. The defendants dismissed their lawyers and represented themselves, which allowed them to speak directly to the jury, explain the full facts about the climate crisis, and their reasons for taking the actions they did.

This is a tactic I know something about, having done the same thing in 1972 when facing imprisonment in an Old Bailey conspiracy trial for disrupting tours by apartheid South African sports teams. I was also acquitted, like the Shell defendants, on a majority jury verdict.

The Shell jury, having heard the evidence, concluded that the damage done was a proportionate response to the damage Shell continues to do to the planet. Decades ago, Shell researched the causes and potential impact of global heating, but rather than move out of fossil fuels, it hired lobbyists to throw doubt on the science and frustrate action.

It continues to evade justice for the damage it has done to ecosystems and people's lives and livelihoods around the globe.

Meanwhile, its much publicised net zero strategy includes investment in new oil exploration and gas pumping of $8bn (£5.8bn) a year, with only between $2bn and $3bn for renewables and an unrealistic reliance on tree planting and carbon capture technologies. This inadequate response recently caused the Methodist church, a major shareholder, to lose patience and pull out of the company.

The Shell jury, a microcosm of the wider public, suggests that once people are fully informed about the climate crisis, they may understand the urgency and support the radical action needed to address it.

Of the estimated 2,000 XR prosecutions taken through the magistrates courts since April 2019, nearly 1,000 are still going on.

In addition, a dozen more crown court cases are still pending. Maybe jury verdicts in these cases won't go the same way as the Shell case. But perhaps they will. And if this sort of "perverse acquittal" becomes the norm, it will add to the mounting calls for governments to stop the criminalisation of nonviolent climate protesters and start focusing instead on keeping us all safe from impending disaster.

Covid has piled up a massive backlog in the courts, with thousands of criminals escaping penalties and victims and witnesses to crime forced to endure an agony of waiting for justice. Indeed, the backlog began well before the pandemic because of this government's savage funding cuts in courts and tribunals, and even more punitive cuts in legal aid. Whether innocent or guilty, people aren't getting the chance to have their cases heard.

It's time for Priti Patel, the director of public prosecutions and the police to halt these XR prosecutions on the grounds that the law readily provides - that they are "not in the public interest". This would save a pile of money and leave the courts free to prioritise real criminals, not those seeking to save our planet.

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Putting Extinction Rebellion activists on trial isn't in the public interest, so let's stop | Peter Hain

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n the face of resistance by juries, surely there is a strong case to halt all the pending trials of Extinction Rebellion activists? With nearly a thousand trials still waiting to be heard in the courts, six members of the group were recently acquitted at Southwark crown court in XR's second trial by a jury.

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Image: Antti Kolppo / Yle

The number of fast charging stations for electric cars is set to grow rapidly this year. The largest charging networks are planning to open new stations, while the S-Group rolls out its own network at ABC locations.

Its first new stations, in Helsinki's Pukinmäki and Itäkeskus neighbourhoods will be tested soon, while others are already located on motorways. Rapid charging - which can typically restore a car battery to 80 percent capacity within as little as half an hour - is crucial for the feasibility of long-distance travel with electric cars and trucks.

"The construction of the network has started in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and plans are well under way elsewhere in Finland. There are about 50 charging stations in various stages of planning this year, says Tiina Viksten, Development Director of the S-Group's ABC chain, which has combined petrol stations, cafés and minimarkets around the country.

By 2024, there should already be about 1,000 ABC charging stations across the country. They will be at S-Group sites including supermarkets, ABC locations and hotels.
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Image: Lotta Laakso / Yle

"Our goal is to create a significant network throughout Finland. Our plans are based on forecasts of the electrification of the nation's cars," Viksten said.

K-Group and Lidl expand store sites

Other players also have significant expansion plans.

For several years, the K-Group has had its own K-Charge network, which has charging points across Finland, mostly outside large grocery stores. The K-Group says that it is Finland's largest fast-charging network.

"This year, we plan to install 20 new charging stations with basic charging, fast charging and hypercharging," said Tom von Bonsdorff, Director of K-Charge.

German-owned retail chain Lidl also intends to invest "significantly" in charging stations in the next few years, according to Lidl Finland's Director of Real Estate and Development, Virpi Kaikkonen.

"An electric car charging station will be installed at each of our new stores and we will also add them to the parking lots of existing stores, so that by the end of 2024 all of our nearly 200 stores will have stations," Kaikkonen told Yle.

New investments exceed €10m

Other nationwide charging networks, operated by Virta and Recharge Finland, are also growing quickly.

"This year, more than 50 new fast chargers and several hyperchargers will be added to our network," said Aleksi Patana, Country Manager of Virta, which bills itself as Finland's leading EV charging network.
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Image: Lotta Laakso / Yle

Virta chargers are owned by local power companies or property owners. Virta manages the chargers' app and back-end systems.

Country Director Sami Saarilahti from Recharge said that this year the firm plans to build rapid and even faster hypercharging points at several dozen sites in Finland.

Recharge builds and owns its charging points itself. The network includes chargers previously built by Fortum, which the majority state-owned energy giant sold to Recharge a year ago. They can still be used with the Charge & Drive app maintained by Fortum.

According to Saarilahti, Recharge intends to particularly expand its hypercharging network to support motorists driving long distances.

The city of Helsinki's energy utility, Helen, also plans to expand its charging network. Already this year, Helen has installed rapid chargers at Citycon shopping centres.

"Helen's goal is to grow its charging network nationwide to more than 1,000 points by 2025 and to be one of the leading service providers nationwide," the company said in a statement.

Charging companies declined to disclose the exact size of their investments. According to von Bonsdorff, setting up a new charging station usually has a six-figure price tag.

Based on the price range of the chargers and the planned numbers, Yle estimates that various companies plan to spend more than 10 million euros on new stations in Finland this year.

More points in each location

According to a report by the Technology Industries of Finland, there were 365 rapid charging sites at the end of last year. This year, that number could increase by as much as 300, almost doubling. Tesla stations are not included in these figures.

Whereas in the past many charging stations only offered one rapid charging point, now more stations will feature several to avoid queues forming.

With K-Charge, there are usually already two rapid chargers at each location. Each S-Group station will typically have 4-8 points.

K-Charge has been building its fast charger network since late 2018. It now consists of more than 100 rapid chargers in different parts of the country.

"In this way, a motorist making a longer trip can rely on having a charging station available at a desired stop," said ABC's Viksten.

According to von Bonsdorff, the K network sometimes experiences congestion on sites near motorways during the busiest holiday periods.

"We are happy to see that competitors are entering the field and that the entire charging infrastructure is growing. If we want to meet the emission reduction targets for transport, we need a lot of electric cars and charging stations," von Bonsdorff said.

Profits still a long way off

The government has set ambitious targets for the electrification of road traffic, but there are so far only just over 10,000 all-electric cars in Finland, far fewer than in Sweden and Norway, for instance.

"Charging stations alone is not such a great business yet, because building infrastructure is expensive and takes a lot of money. However, we see this from many angles: this is a service for our store customers, and responsibility is also important," von Bonsdorff said.

According to the K-Group, fast charging volumes rose by 130 percent in January-March compared to the same period last year, although the size of the network has remained almost the same.

Unlike most competitors, charging at Lidl is still free of charge. According to Lidl, the company aims to help low-emission driving become possible and effortless throughout Finland.

Recharge's Saarilahti also believes that investments must be made now, especially with a view to the coming years.

"Revenues do not yet cover expenses at this stage; operators must have significant financial resources. This is especially true when it comes to a comprehensive network at the national level, as well as hypercharging in general," Saarilahti said.

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Electric vehicle charging network set to expand quickly

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The number of fast charging stations for electric cars is set to grow rapidly this year. The largest charging networks are planning to open new stations, while the S-Group rolls out its own network at ABC locations. Its first new stations, in Helsinki's Pukinmäki and Itäkeskus neighbourhoods will be tested soon, while others are already located on motorways.

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3D printing uses cement- houses at this scale can be even more ecological without cement use (timber?)

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3D printing uses cement- houses at this scale can be even more ecological without cement use (timber?)

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Dutch couple have become Europe's first tenants of a fully 3D printed house in a development that its backers believe will open up a world of choice in the shape and style of the homes of the future.

Elize Lutz, 70, and Harrie Dekkers, 67, retired shopkeepers from Amsterdam, received their digital key - an app allowing them to open the front door of their two-bedroom bungalow at the press of a button - on Thursday.

"It is beautiful," said Lutz. "It has the feel of a bunker - it feels safe," added Dekkers.

Inspired by the shape of a boulder, the dimensions of which would be difficult and expensive to construct using traditional methods, the property is the first of five homes planned by the construction firm Saint-Gobain Weber Beamix for a plot of land by the Beatrix canal in the Eindhoven suburb of Bosrijk.

Harrie Dekkers and Elize Lutz inside their 3D-printed house: 'It has the feel of a bunker - it feels safe.' Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian

In the last two years properties partly constructed by 3D printing have been built in France and the US, and nascent projects are proliferating around the world.

But those behind the Dutch house, which boasts 94sq meters of living space, are said to have pipped their rivals to the post by being the first legally habitable and commercially rented property where the load-bearing walls have been made using a 3D printer nozzle.

"This is also the first one which is 100% permitted by the local authorities and which is habited by people who actually pay for living in this house," said Bas Huysmans, chief executive of Weber Benelux, a construction offshoot of its French parent company Saint-Gobain.

The first completed home of Project Milestone, a partnership with Eindhoven University of Technology and the Vesteda housing corporation, was due to be put on the rental market in 2019, but the challenges of the architect's design, which involved overhanging external walls, caused delays.

The 3D printing method involves a huge robotic arm with a nozzle that squirts out a specially formulated cement, said to have the texture of whipped cream. The cement is "printed" according to an architect's design, adding layer upon layer to create a wall to increase its strength.

The point at which the nozzle head had to be changed after hours of operation is visible in the pattern of the new bungalow's walls, as are small errors in the cement printing, perhaps familiar to anyone who has used an ink printer.

But while it is early days, the 3D printing method is seen by many within the construction industry as a way to cut costs and environmental damage by reducing the amount of cement that is used. In the Netherlands, it also provides an alternative at a time when there is a shortage of skilled bricklayers.

The new house consists of 24 concrete elements that were printed layer by layer at a plant in Eindhoven before being transported by lorry to the building site and placed on a foundation to be worked on by Dutch building firm Van Wijnen. A roof and window frames were then fitted, and finishing touches applied.

By the time the fifth of the homes is built - comprising three floors and three bedrooms - it is hoped that construction will be done wholly on-site and that various other installations will also be made using the printer, further reducing costs.

The point at which the nozzle head had to be changed after hours of operation is visible in the pattern of the new bungalow's walls. Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian

"If you look at what time we actually needed to print this house it was only 120 hours," Huysmans said. "So all the elements, if we would have printed them in one go, it would have taken us less than five days because the big benefit is that the printer does not need to eat, does not need to sleep, it doesn't need to rest. So if we would start tomorrow, and learned how to do it, we can print the next house five days from now."

Lutz and Dekkers, who have lived in four different types of home in the six years since their two grown-up daughters left the family home, are paying €800 (£695) a month to live in the property for six months from 1 August after answering a call for applicants on the internet. "I saw the drawing of this house and it was exactly like a fairytale garden," said Lutz.

The market rent would normally be twice that being paid by the couple. "Did we earn money with this first house? No," said Huysmans. "Do we expect to lose money on house number two, three, four and five? No.

"With 3D printing you generate a huge creativity and a huge flexibility in design," he added. "Why did we do so much effort to print this 'rock'? Because this shows perfectly that you can make any shape you want to make."

Yasin Torunoglu, alderman for housing and spatial development for the municipality of Eindhoven, said: "With the 3D-printed home, we're now setting the tone for the future: the rapid realisation of affordable homes with control over the shape of your own house."

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Dutch couple move into Europe's first fully 3D-printed house

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Dutch couple have become Europe's first tenants of a fully 3D printed house in a development that its backers believe will open up a world of choice in the shape and style of the homes of the future.

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Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today's children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU's deputy chief has warned.

Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests.

He said: "It's not just an urgent matter - it's a difficult matter. We have to transform our economy. There are huge benefits, but it's a huge challenge. The biggest threat is the social one. If we don't fix this, our children will be waging wars over water and food. There is no doubt in my mind."

Frans Timmermans: 'Those of us who understand we need to move fast should make the social issue the pivotal issue in all of this'. Photograph: Reuters

Tackling climate change will be many times cheaper than the disruption that global heating will cause, as well as bringing benefits to health, and the costs have fallen dramatically in recent years. However, the shift away from fossil fuels will mean the end of some traditional jobs such as coalmining, and the costs of change will fall unequally on different sectors of society unless politicians step in.

"Where I see a huge risk is that you get an alliance between those who don't want change because they see their interest affected, whether it's in fossil fuels or in traditional economic circles," Timmermans told the Guardian in an interview. "Those interests combine with the fear of negative social consequences. Then you could get a counter-momentum where people say, 'Hang on, not too fast, people cannot stomach this.'"

He added: "Those of us who understand we need to move fast should make the social issue the pivotal issue in all of this. I really call upon all of those in the climate movement to join me in focusing on the social issue more than they've done in the past. Because this could become the biggest stumbling block."

He warned that sacrifices would be needed from the older generation to ensure that young people can live in a safe climate. Today's older people were the beneficiaries of a previous generation's sacrifice, and were now being called on to make changes themselves, he said.

"Sometimes I wonder whether we are aware of the transformation we're heading to, and how profound it is. It's an effort comparable to restructuring after a violent conflict. I used to talk to my grandparents and my parents about how they saw this, after the war. They said, 'Well, we sacrificed a lot because we knew our children would be better off.' And this feeling is not there yet in our society."

Changing people's lives today would be difficult, but the benefits would be felt by today's children, he added. "This for politics is a huge, huge challenge. We need to recapture that feeling of a purpose - doing something not for yourself, but for others, which I think has always led to society being at its best."

A climate protest by Greenpeace in Brussels in December. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Any sacrifice would be mild for most, such as the inconvenience of having a house renovated to low-carbon standards, or switching to electric transport, and eating less meat. But for some it could involve a change of job or living patterns.

"We're not asking people to go back to 1930s situations, we're not asking people to live in caves and munch grass. It's taking perhaps one or two steps back to be able to jump much further in to the future."

Timmermans' warnings reflect a growing concern among climate experts that politicians have failed to show people the benefits of a low-carbon society, which include cleaner air and water, more livable cities, and higher levels of health and wellbeing, as well as defusing the climate crisis. Politicians, including Donald Trump and Republicans in the US, have presented tackling climate breakdown as a cost, and many people are fearful for their jobs.

Timmermans acknowledged that some people in traditional industries would have to change, and said the main role for politicians was to make this easier. Reskilling people in industries such as fossil fuel and power generation would be key.

He pointed to Poland, which is highly dependent on coal. "They have a very high level of engineering, of education - there's a huge potential there [in a low-carbon economy] for a country like Poland. And there simply isn't any future in coal. The longer you protract [the change], the more painful and the more costly it will be."

Timmermans has a pivotal role this year, within the EU and globally, as he leads the bloc's green deal, intended to transform the European economy to a low-carbon footing, and leads the bloc's climate efforts at Cop26, vital UN climate talks to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow this November.

On Thursday, he travelled to London for his first official visit outside Brussels since the pandemic lockdowns began, with a four-hour meeting in Downing Street with Alok Sharma, the UK's Cop26 president and host of the talks. He is in weekly contact with John Kerry, climate envoy to US president Joe Biden, and with China's top climate official, Xie Zhenhua.

The EU has put in law its own climate target, of cutting emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. This is one of the most stretching climate targets yet put forward, alongside those of the UK and the US, though campaigners have said the bloc could do better and have called for a 60% target.

Timmermans said no further improvement of the emissions target was possible, but said he was asking EU member states to come forward with more money for climate finance: assistance from rich to poor countries to help them cut emissions and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown.

"Our approach is ambitious; I think we've set the stage. I hope others will follow that example. I see what the UK is doing - that's even slightly more ambitious than what we're doing. But then all the others still have a lot of catching up to do. I think the onus here is not on the EU, nor on the UK."

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Climate crisis: our children face wars over food and water, EU deputy warns

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Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today's children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU's deputy chief has warned.

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A tenth of the world's mountain glacier ice will have melted by the middle of this century even if humanity meets the goals of the Paris climate agreement, according to figures compiled exclusively for the Guardian.

The loss is equivalent to more than 13,200 cubic kilometres of water - enough to fill Lake Superior, or more than 10m Wembley Stadiums - with knock-on effects on highly populated river deltas, wildlife habitats and sea levels.

In some particularly hard-hit areas, including central Europe, North America and low latitudes, glacier mass is expected to decline by more than half.

Scientists said the overwhelming bulk of this melt-off, which does not include Greenland or Antarctica, is unavoidable because it has been locked in by the global heating caused by humans in recent years.

However, they say the actions governments take today - including the recent announcements of more ambitious emissions-cutting goals by the US, the UK and others - can make a big difference to the landscape in the second half of this century.

"What we see in the mountains now was caused by greenhouse gases two or three decades ago," said the glaciologist Ben Marzeion from the University of Bremen. "In one way, we could see it as a doomsday because it is already too late to stop many glaciers melting. But it is also important that people are aware of how decisions taken now can affect how our world will look two or three generations from now."

Marzeion extracted the data from a synthesis last year of more than 100 computer models generated by research institutes around the world.

These studies projected various possible behaviours of the planet's roughly 200,000 mountain glaciers, depending on different emissions pathways and weather circulation patterns.

The compiled results are considered the most accurate estimate yet of how mountains will lose their white snow-caps and blue ice-rivers.

Between 2021 and 2050, Marzeion calculated the average mass loss over the various scenarios is 13,200 Gt. This is equivalent to melting almost five Olympic swimming pools of ice every second over the next 30 years.

View from a remote ice cave in the Eagle glacier in Juneau, Alaska. Photograph: Becky Bohrer/AP

Aggressive emissions cuts would barely slow this. The difference between the best and worst-case scenarios was less than 20%. The remaining 80% is already locked in.

That contrasts with projections for the second half of the century, when the decisions taken now will make a huge difference. In a low-emissions scenario, current glacier mass is projected to diminish by about 18% by 2100, which would be a slowdown. By contrast, in a high-emissions scenario, the loss would accelerate to reach 36%.

This has multiple consequences. Mountain glacier melt contributes more than a third of sea-level rise, a higher contribution than the Antarctic, according to the latest European State of the Climate Report, which was released last week. This is steadily raising the risk of floods and inundations along coastal regions and rivers.

Depending on how quickly emissions can be cut, the extra runoff is likely to add 79-159mm to sea levels by 2100, according to the synthesis paper.

At a local and regional level, it can also reduce the stability of river systems. On a seasonal level, Alpine glaciers help to regulate water supply by storing precipitation in winter and releasing it in summer.

But as they melt away over decades due to global heating, more downstream areas will first experience a water boom, then a bust. Previous studies suggest 1.9 billion people are at risk of mountain water shortages, most of them in China and India.

The urgency varies according to altitude, ice thickness, weather patterns and a host of other factors. Lower mountain ranges, such as the European Alps or the Pyrenees, are expected to be among the worst affected. In Switzerland and Italy, there are already cases of famous glaciers retreating rapidly or melting completely.

Scientists predict there could even be more glaciers in the world by 2050 because many of the current big bodies of ice will split into smaller fragments, but they stress the number and area of glaciers is less important than the trends affecting mass and volume over decades.

"It is very important to think long term," said Samuel Nussbaumer of the World Glacier Monitoring Service and the University of Zurich. "Glaciers have a long memory."

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World will lose 10% of glacier ice even if it hits climate targets

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A tenth of the world's mountain glacier ice will have melted by the middle of this century even if humanity meets the goals of the Paris climate agreement, according to figures compiled exclusively for the Guardian.

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Helsinki, Finland , Dec. 19, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Former fuel-oil storage caves in the Helsinki bedrock will store hot water heated in the processes of the Helsinki energy company Helen, to be used for district heating from 2021 onwards. The hot-water lakes will be the newest energy storage facility in Helsinki and complement underground cold-water lakes used to cool the city.

The man-made caves, now being converted from oil to water storage, are located in the Mustikkamaa recreational island of Helsinki. The caves will be filled with 260,000m ³(70 million gallons) of domestic water, which will be kept at maximum 90 °C (194 °F) through a district heating connection from Helen's heat production processes to the island.

The heat stored in the water will be released into the district heating network with heat exchangers. The full energy storage capacity of the caves - 120 MW - will be enough to provide for half of Helsinki's summer-time district heat consumption (hot domestic water) for 4 days. It can be used in winter to ease peak demand, which would otherwise necessitate extra generation in coal- and oil-fired processes.

"Because heat doesn't have to be produced as it is consumed, heat energy storage will compensate for energy production with fossil fuels. It is one step in our shift away from fossil fuels," says Rauno Tolonen, Helen's climate and energy efficiency manager.

"The significance of heat storage will be growing as we shift more and more to renewable energy. The shift will entail higher fluctuation in the availability and cost of energy," Tolonen explains.

The underground hot-water lakes of Mustikkamaa will be similar to underground lakes of cold water used for cooling in Helsinki's district cooling network.

Two caves built into the Helsinki bedrock - one under the downtown Esplanade Park for 25,000m ³ (6.5 million gallons) and the other in Pasila for 11,000m ³ (3 million gallons) of cold water - are integrated with heat pumps, which work with the cooling network to produce district heat by recycling energy.

As cold water circulates in the network releasing its cooling energy, it recovers heat from properties. Heat pumps recover the heat and feed it into the district heating network.

A new heat pump was added to the Esplanade facility in summer 2018, which increased the share of district heat produced with heat pumps in Helsinki to 10%. Heat pumps are used to recover heat from diverse available sources, including treated wastewater and data centers.

Heat pumps now produce more than 90% of Helsinki's district cooling, which is Europe's third largest and fastest growing network.

Helen has plans for more energy storage, investigating possibilities to build the world's first seasonal heat storage facility into former fuel-oil caves located in the residential development area of Kruunuvuorenranta. The caves would be filled in summer with seawater at around 18 °C (64 °F) and used in winter as a heat source for heat pumps to produce district heating water at over 80 °C (176°F). Heat recovered from local properties would be an additional heat source.

Energy storage and heat pumps are elements of Helen's extensive palette of solutions to shift to climate-neutral energy production. Helen seeks to cut carbon dioxide emissions fully by 2050. Helen's interim goal is to cut the use of coal by 50% and carbon dioxide emissions by 40% from 1990 to 2025. Today 90% of Helsinki's heated building stock uses Helen-supplied district heat, 61% of which is produced with coal and 28% with natural gas at Helen's four combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Helsinki.

Helen's plan for climate neutrality vitally supports a plan of the City of Helsinki to render Helsinki carbon neutral by 2035. The City of Helsinki has prepared a detailed action plan outlining how to reach the target. An interim target for Helsinki is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% from 1990 to 2030.

Helen Ltd is a fully owned energy company of the City of Helsinki.

Helen: https://www.helen.fi/en/company/
Helsinki climate goals: http://www.stadinilmasto.fi/en/
City of Helsinki: https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en

Helsinki

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Helsinki Produces Energy with Underground Hot and Cold Water Lakes

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Helsinki, Finland , Dec. 19, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Former fuel-oil storage caves in the Helsinki bedrock will store hot water heated in the processes of the Helsinki energy company Helen, to be used for district heating from 2021 onwards.

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Renovation is more ecological - Finnish research

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Renovation is more ecological - Finnish research

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Suomessa puretaan vuosittain noin 4000 rakennusta. Vaarassa ovat erityisesti vanhat koulut ja 1970-luvun kerrostalot, mutta onpa Helsingissä pantu segregaation torjumisen nimissä purkulistalle myös 1990-luvulla rakennettu Meri-Rastilan osa. Purkamalla tiivistämistä on perusteltu myös ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnalla. Euroopan toiseksi kerrostalovaltaisimpaan maahan niitä halutaan lisää ja yhä korkeampina.

Valtaosa purkamisista tehdään suurissa kaupungeissa. Tampereella purettujen rakennusten volyymi vastaa neljäsosaa uudisrakentamisen volyymista, kun keskiarvo Suomessa on kymmenesosa. Purkuun jo päätyneiden rakennusten lisäksi rakennuskanta pitää sisällään runsaasti tyhjillään olevia ja vajaakäyttöisiä rakennuksia, joiden kohtalo on vielä avoin.

Toinen innokas purkaja on Rovaniemi, joka tunnettiin sodan jälkeen Suomen moderneimpana kaupunkina, koska kaikki talot olivat uusia. Ehkä juuri siitä syystä niille ei ole nähty historiallista arvoa.

Korjaaminen kannattaa lähes aina

Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto on tehnyt yhdessä VTT:n kanssa selvityksen Purkaa vai korjata?. Se osoittaa kuinka järjetöntä sekä kustannusten että Suomen ilmastotavoitteiden kannalta turha purkaminen on.

"Peruskorjaus on ilmastoystävällisempi vaihtoehto kuin uudisrakentaminen. Sitä se on myös niissä tapauksissa, joissa uudisrakennus tehtäisiin puusta", dosentti Satu Huuhka Tampereen yliopistolta kertoi vähähiilisen rakentamisen vuosiseminaarissa.

VTT:n Terttu Vainion mukaan myös elinkaarikustannukset puoltavat peruskorjausta. "Uuden rakennuksen rakentamiselle löytyy kuitenkin myös hyväksyttäviä perusteita, kuten rakenteelliset vauriot, erittäin vakavat terveyshaitat tai tontin hyödyntämätön potentiaali", hän sanoi viime syksynä Rakennuslehden haastattelussa.

Rakennus matalaksi ja tilalle uusi vai pitäisikö korjata? VTT:n Terttu Vainiolla on vastauksia hiilijalanjälkeen ja muihin alan kysymyksiin

Tapaustutkimusten kohteina olivat 1950-luvun ja 2010-luvun koulujen peruskorjaus ja mahdollinen laajennus. Koulut, joiden tietoja selvityksessä hyödynnettiin, ovat Helsingin Vuosaaressa ja Tampereen Tesomassa.

1970-luvun asuinkerrostalo, jonka korjaamista ja lisäkerrosten rakentamista verrattiin purkamiseen ja uudisrakentamiseen on Helsingin Malmilla. Tätä selvitystä ei voi täysin yleistää, koska näin raskasta korjausta kannattaa Suomessa tehdä vain arvokkaimmilla alueilla, jotta se olisi kannattavaa.

Kouluvertailuissa tarkasteltiin peruskorjauksen vaihtoehtona koulun purkamista ja uuden rakentamista joko betonista tai puusta (CLT). Vaihtoehtona oli myös peruskorjaus ja koulun laajennus puurakenteisena ja sille vaihtoehtona ison koulun rakentaminen betonista tai puusta.

Peruskorjaus on tutkimuksen mukaan ilmastoystävällisempi ja elinkaaritaloudellisempi vaihtoehto kuin uusi koulu riippumatta koulun koosta tai siitä rakennetaanko uusi koulu puusta tai betonista.

Pienen koulun peruskorjauksen hiilijalanjälki on 50 vuoden tarkastelujaksolla 4 prosenttia pienempi ja elinkaarikustannukset 15 prosenttia vähemmän kuin purkamisen ja uuden betonirakenteisen koulunrakennuksen. Puurakenteisen uudisrakennuksen päästöt alittavat peruskorjatun koulun päästöt 30 vuoden kohdalla. 50 vuoden tarkastelujaksolla puurakenteisen koulun päästöt ovat 5 prosenttia pienemmät kuin peruskorjatun koulun.

Puun käyttö rungon rakennusmateriaalina vähentää hiilipiikin suuruutta lähes kolmanneksella betonirakennukseen verrattuna. Hiili-investoinnin takaisinmaksuaika on Huuhkan mielestä puukoulullakin kuitenkin liian pitkä, sillä ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnan kannalta nopeat keinot ovat arvokkaampia kuin vasta vuosikymmenten päässä toteutuvat.

Suuren koulun eli peruskorjauksen ja betonirakenteisen laajennuksen hiilijalanjälki on 50 vuoden tarkastelujaksolla 8 prosenttia pienempi ja elinkaarikustannukset 6 prosenttia matalammat kuin purkamisen ja uuden betonirakenteisen koulun. Peruskorjaus ja laajennus on vähähiilisempi vaihtoehto koko elinkaaren ajan myös puurakenteisia vaihtoehtoja tarkasteltaessa.

VTT:n laskelmien mukaan uuden rakennuksen elinkaarikustannukset ovat 17 prosenttia korkeammat kuin peruskorjauksen. Peruskorjauksessa investointien osuus on lähes 60 prosenttia ja uuden rakennuksen rakentamisessa lähes 70 prosenttia elinkaarikustannuksista. Uudisrakennuksen säästöt energiakustannuksissa eivät riitä kuromaan eroa peruskorjattuun rakennukseen tarkastellussa 50 vuodessa.

Vertailu tehtiin vain betonikoululle. Puukoulun osalta hintaero olisi vain kasvanut, sillä puurakentaminen on Vainion mukaan betonirakentamista kalliimpaa. Esimerkiksi Keravanjoen koulussa hirsivaihtoehto osoittautui YIT:n vertailussa liian kalliiksi ja koulu rakennettiin betonirunkoisena ja puuta on käytetty lähinnä vain julkisivussa.

Tutkimuksissa ei ollut mukana hybridivaihtoehtoa eli sitä, että uudisrakennus olisi tehty vanhojen perustusten päälle, jolloin olisi säästetty iso määrä betonia.

Seminaarissa Huuhkalta kysyttiin sitä voisiko neliöiden sijaan vertailukohtana olla oppilasta tai käyttäjää kohden laskettu hiilijalanjälki. Ajatuksena oli, että uusi rakennus voisi olla toiminnallisesti vanhaa parempi ja tilankäytöltään tehokkaampi.

Huuhkan mukaan kouluvertailussa tällaisia toiminnallisia eroja ei havaittu. "Uudessa arkkitehtuurissa on usein esimerkiksi korkeita ja näyttäviä aulatiloja, eikä pelkkää puhdasta toiminnallisuutta", hän vastasi.

Rakennuksen peruskorjaamista purkamisen ja uudisrakentamisen sijaan voivat puoltaa myös rakennuksen merkittävyys maisemassa, kaupunkikuvassa tai alueen historiassa tai sen arkkitehtoniset arvot. Esimerkiksi tutkimuksessa mallina käytettyä 1950-luvulla valmistunutta Heteniityn koulua Helsingin Vuosaaressa voidaan pitää tällaisena rakennuksena. Helsingin keskustassa taas monia arvorakennuksia on korjattu kaupunkikuvallisista syistä, vaikka uudisrakentaminen olisi voinut tulla edullisemmaksi. Arvotalojen arvo on näkynyt myös erittäin korkeina myyntihintoina eli ostajat ovat arvostaneet vanhat julkisivut moderneja korkeammalle.

Elementtikerrostaloon lisäkerroksia puusta

1970-luvun kerrostalon toimenpidevaihtoehtoina tarkasteltiin helsinkiläisen nelikerroksisen talon peruskorjausta ja kahden lisäkerroksen rakentamista puusta sekä sille vaihtoehtona purkamista ja uuden kuusikerroksisen betonirakennuksen rakentamista. Näille oli tehty hiilijalanjälkilaskelmat jo aiemmin.

Rakennusala tarvitsee kiertotalousmallia

Vaikka peruskorjauksen korjausaste on tapauksessa poikkeuksellisen suuri ja lisäkerrosten rakentamisen osalta se vastasi uudisrakentamista, on se hiilijalanjäljeltään 26 prosenttia ja elinkaarikustannuksiltaan 15 prosenttia edullisempi vaihtoehto kuin purkaminen ja uuden betonikerrostalon rakentaminen.

Tulosten yleistettävyyttä hankaloittaa se, että Suomessa löytyy vain harvoja 1970-luvun alueita, missä näin hintaviin hankkeisiin kannattaa ryhtyä. Esimerkiksi VVO teetti jo 1990-luvulla Imatralle vastaavanlaisen puisen lisäkerroskokeilun, mutta kovin montaa vastaavaa ei ole tehty.

Helsingissä suunnitellaan radikaalia kasvojenkohotusta 70-luvun lähiöön - Mutta mitä kunnianhimoiset suunnitelmat tulevat maksamaan?

Puurakenteisia lisäkerroksia voi perustella niiden keveydellä eli ne rasittavat vanhaa runkoa vähemmän kuin betonirakenteiset. Toisaalta niiden rakentamiskustannuksia voivat nostaa merkittävästi puuhun kohdistuvat paloturvallisuusvaatimukset, jotka edellyttävät automaattista sammutusjärjestelmää.

Tarkoituksenhakuisia tutkimuksia varottava

Huuhka varoittaa, että hiilijalanjälkivertailuja ei pidä tehdä tarkoitushakuisesti niin, että haetaan perusteluita purkamiselle. Esimerkiksi monet energiataloutta parantavat toimenpiteet on mahdollista tehdä myös peruskorjattavaan kiinteistöön.

Purkaminen saadaan näyttämään kannattavalta myös, jos muutetaan mittausperusteita eli sijaan tarkastellaankin hiilijalanjälkeä asukasta. Silloin hyvällä sijainnilla olevan matalan rakennuksen purkamista voidaan perustella sillä, että hyvistä liikenneyhteyksistä pääsee nauttimaan paljon suurempi määrä ihmisiä.

Kannattaako korjata vai purkaa ja täydennysrakentaa? A-Insinöörien selvitys yllättää

Huuhkan mukaan on harhaanjohtavaa esittää hiilipäästöt yhtenä könttänä, jolla sitten perustellaan purkamista. Yhdessä kirjallisuustapauksessa uudisrakentamisen hiili-investoinnin takaisimaksuajaksi saatiin 60 vuotta. Suomessa purettavien talojen keski-ikä on 50 vuotta, joten mitään luvatuista ilmastohyötyjä ei ehkä ehditä saavuttaa.

Huuhkan mukaan vertailu hiilijalanjälkivertailu on syytä esittää aina ajan funktiona, jolloin hahmotetaan purkavan uudisrakentamisen hiili-investoinnin takaisinmaksuaika. Jo 30 vuoden takaisinmaksuaika on liian pitkä.

Takaisinmaksuaikaa ei voi arvioida suoraviivaisesti niin, että tietyn vuoden jälkeen uudisrakentaminen tulee edullisemmaksi ja ero kasvaisi sitten vakiona. Laskelmissa on otettava huomioon myös se, että energiantuotannon päästöt laskevat, jolloin käytönaikaisen energiankulutuksen merkitys vähenee ajan myötä. Tähän perustu ympäristöministeriön laskentaohjekin.

Hiilijalanjälkisääntely estämään turhia purkamisia

Myös kirjallisuusselvitys 55 vertailukelpoisesta kohteesta vahvisti Huuhkan ja Vainion johtopäätökset. Peruskorjaaminen on uudisrakentamista vähähiilisempää 30-50 vuotta tai enemmän ja yleensä myös elinkaaritaloudellisempaa.

"Koska tulokset ovat näin selvät, tätä näkökulmaa ei voi jättää vähähiilisyysohjauksen ulkopuolelle", Huuhka sanoi. Tutkimukseen onkin listattu parikymmentä keinoa, jolla peruskorjaamiseen kannustetaan vetoamalla juuri sen uudisrakentamista pienempään hiilijalanjälkeen.

Kun hiilijalanjälkinäkökulmaa ei ole säännelty tai sanktioitu, vain taloudellinen harkinta ja uudisrakentamisen helppous yleensä merkitsee. Kyseessä on Huuhkan mukaan iso ohjauksellinen kysymys.

"Puuttuminen hankkeisiin on vaikeaa, koska ne eivät yleensä ole riittävän arvokkaita, jotta säilyttämiseen päästäisiin kiinni suojelunäkemyksen kautta."

Kuntien omaehtoiseen vähähiilisyysohjaukseen on Huuhkan mukaan tarkoituksenmukaista tarjota maankäyttö- ja rakennuslakia nyt uudistettaessa useita vaihtoehtoisia ohjausvälineitä, sillä erilaiset ohjauskeinot voivat soveltua erilaisiin kunnissa esiintyviin tilanteisiin. Niistä keskeisimpiä ovat lisärakennusoikeuden myöntäminen asemakaavassa, alueellisena poikkeamisena ja rakennusluvan yhteydessä ja hiilijalanjälkirajan asettaminen asemakaavassa.

Tiukahkon hiilijalanjälkirajan määrittely edistäisi rakennusten säilymistä. Sitä voi perustella sillä, että korjaaminen on purkamista ja uudisrakentamista vähähiilisempi vaihtoehto.
Mahdollisia ohjauskeinoa, joilla peruskorjausta voitaisiin painottaa ilmastosyistä

Purkamisen perusteluvelvoite purkulupaa haettaessa

Asemakaavassa tai rakennusmääräyskokoelmassa annettu säilyttämään kannustava CO2-raja

Maankäyttömaksun alentaminen lisärakennusoikeutta kaavoitettaessa, olevat rakennukset säilytettäessä

Erilaisten maksujen alentaminen (tonttivuokrat, maankäyttömaksu, rakennuslupa- ja kaavoitusmaksut) rakennuksia säilytettäessä.

Kiinteistöverotuksen mahdollisuudet rakennusten säilyttämiseen kannustamiseksi.

Tutkimuksessa havaittu tärkein lisätutkimuksen tarve on niissä kasvavien kaupunkiseutujen tapauksissa, joissa tavoitellaan huomattavaa asukas- tai käyttäjämäärän lisäystä. Mikäli olemassa olevia rakennuksia laajentamalla ei voida saavuttaa purkavalla uudisrakentamisella tavoiteltua käyttäjämäärää, osa uudisrakentamisesta joudutaan rakennuksia säilytettäessä sijoittamaan muualle joko kaupunkia täydentämällä tai uusia alueita perustamalla. Tämän rakentamisen sijoittamisella on vaikutusta paitsi maa- ja pohjarakentamisesta aiheutuviin päästöihin, myös odotettavissa olevien liikenteen päästöjen kannalta.

Lähde:
Purkaa vai korjata? Hiilijalanjälkivaikutukset,elinkaarikustannukset ja ohjauskeinot Satu Huuhka, Terttu Vainio, Malin Moisio, Emmi Lampinen, Mikko Knuutinen, Samuel Bashmakov, Arto Köliö, Jukka Lahdensivu, Paula Ala-Kotila ja Pertti Lahdenperä

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Peruskorjaus on elinkaariedullinen ilmastoteko, kertoo tuore tutkimus -silti Suomessa purkutahti kiihtyy | Rakennuslehti

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Suomessa puretaan vuosittain noin 4000 rakennusta. Vaarassa ovat erityisesti vanhat koulut ja 1970-luvun kerrostalot, mutta onpa Helsingissä pantu segregaation torjumisen nimissä purkulistalle myös 1990-luvulla rakennettu Meri-Rastilan osa. Purkamalla tiivistämistä on perusteltu myös ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnalla. Euroopan toiseksi kerrostalovaltaisimpaan maahan niitä halutaan lisää ja yhä korkeampina. Valtaosa purkamisista tehdään suurissa kaupungeissa.

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Scott McAulay from the Anthropocene Architecture School talks about climate change in higher education

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Scott McAulay from the Anthropocene Architecture School talks about climate change in higher education

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How Climate Change is Reshaping College Education Globally

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Universities are incorporating climate education into their curriculum to prepare students for future work in a world of climate breakdown.

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Elliott Wood & Grosvenor Group have release a 12 step guide for reuse (organized around the RIBA stages)

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Elliott Wood & Grosvenor Group have release a 12 step guide for reuse (organized around the RIBA stages)

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This interactive flipbook is created with FlippingBook, a service for streaming PDFs online. No download, no waiting. Open and start reading right away!

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Sustainability is a synonym of beauty - Anna Heringer

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Sustainability is a synonym of beauty - Anna Heringer

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https://www.archdaily.com/959398/sustainability-is-a-synonym-of-beauty-in-conversation-with-anna-heringer?fbclid=IwAR2jzwabgyuh0ZA-bLjbh1bHaRYcyjRTDospgJMaTKx6y8VUhHNkG5mqPf4

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Talking to the Louisiana Channel, German architect Anna Heringer outlines the way she works and her multi-disciplinary approach to architectural practice. Growing up in a small town at the Austrian-Bavarian border close to Salzburg - Heringer spent a year living and working in Bangladesh at the age of 19, a place that is now home to a majority of her office's projects. Heringer describes herself as a mix of things in addition to being an architect, describing herself as an activist and a development worker - using her creativity to explore ideas in a variety of forms and media.

As an architect, Anna is very conscious of the value of understanding the local context and sense of place when undertaking a new project, linking to her passion for creating architectural responses rooted in sustainability. "For me, it is essential that the materials are local, the energy sources are local, and with energy sources, I think of human labor". Saying that if human labor is not used, "we create a social problem." In tandem with the importance of local know-how and local building techniques, Anna is also steadfast about using local materials which are more environmentally-friendly and have less embodied energy, "We have fantastic local materials all around the world, we just need to see and be aware of them. Less concrete, more earth - we can't continue to build as we do. Here in Germany, I figured out that the cheapest solution always is the least sustainable, while in Bangladesh the cheapest solution also is the most sustainable."

To see more architecture videos, check ArchDaily's full coverage of Louisiana Channel's series of interviews. News Via Louisiana Channel.
Detailing her work in Bangladesh, Anna realizes the value of knowledge sharing in a cross-cultural context - where in addition to "sustainability being a synonym of beauty", architecture can also play a part on a social scale, as she explains using the example of the METI School project, how the builders of the project, with the wages they earned, then put that money back into the local community, purchasing goods from local markets.

I think architecture is a really powerful tool to shape our society. Just by the way, we choose our materials, construction processes, and how many people are included in the building we can really make an impact. To me, the essential question that I always have in the back of my mind when I am designing and deciding is: what if seven billion people would decide the same way? Would it contribute to social justice? To the environment? All these questions are central because I deeply believe that the world is not changing through one big decision. It's the everyday small decisions that are really shaping our environment and society - Anna Heringer

Heringer's METI School won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007, utilizing sustainable bamboo frame construction in conjunction with historical building techniques using locally available earth. Anna Heringer is an honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development, where she focuses on the use of natural building materials in architecture. Over the years, Anna has realized projects across continents - ranging from Asia to Africa and Europe. Together with Martin Rauch, she has developed the " Clay Storming" method - brainstorming using clay - that she uses to teach at various universities, including ETH Zurich, UP Madrid, TU Munich and GSD/Harvard.

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"Sustainability Is A Synonym Of Beauty": In Conversation With Anna Heringer

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Talking to the Louisiana Channel, German architect Anna Heringer outlines the way she works and her multi-disciplinary approach to architectural practice. Growing up in a small town at the Austrian-Bavarian border close to Salzburg - Heringer spent a year living and working in Bangladesh at the age of 19, a place that is now home to a majority of her office's projects.

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https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/report_majority_of_sorted_plastic_waste_incinerated/11870449

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Image: Janne Järvinen / Yle

State-owned energy company Fortum, which runs Finland's sole plastics recycling facility in Riihimäki, only recycles around a third of all incoming plastic waste, according to Yle investigative programme MOT.

That said, actual recycling levels and those advertised by Fortum don't add up, MOT found.

Over the past few years, Fortum has said that 75 percent of the household plastic waste it processes is recycled into new raw material--a statement the company still made on its website in January. However, over the past few years, the recycling rate has been significantly lower.

Fortum now reports that in 2019, it managed to recycle some 37 percent of plastic waste arriving on-site in Riihimäki, a figure that has remained largely steady, according to the company. At the Riihimäki plant, household plastic passes through several processing stages, ending in plastic pellets that Fortum sells to manufacturers as raw material.

Kalle Saarimaa, Fortum's vice president of recycling and waste, denied that the company provided misleading information regarding recycling efficiency, noting that the share of waste repurposed into raw material varies every year.

More supply than demand

Saarimaa said households' enthusiasm to sort plastic waste has outpaced buyer interest in plastic pellets. This has led to low-quality plastic being burned, creating energy used to power district heating systems.

Experts have criticised Finland for urging residents to recycle plastic the country has been unprepared to handle.

Fortum previously said it lacked the capacity to process all of the sorted plastic arriving in Riihimäki, which is why Finland ships some household plastic waste to Sweden and Germany. The company has claimed that transporting plastic long distances is more environmentally friendly than allowing it to degrade in the natural environment.

Saarimaa said he expects Fortum to be able to increase its plastic recycling efficiency to 60-65 percent in the coming years. A report commissioned by Fortum suggested that the company's current recycling level of just 37 percent also helps lowers carbon emissions.

The EU has set a goal of recycling at least half of all plastic packaging on the market by 2025.
EDIT: This story was edited to clarify that Fortum commissioned a report that suggested its current level of recycling helps to lower carbon emissions, and to remove a reference to chemical recycling.

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Report: Majority of sorted plastic waste incinerated

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State-owned energy company Fortum, which runs Finland's sole plastics recycling facility in Riihimäki, only recycles around a third of all incoming plastic waste, according to Yle investigative programme MOT. That said, actual recycling levels and those advertised by Fortum don't add up, MOT found.

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Finland goes negative after winds beat down electricity prices

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Finland goes negative after winds beat down electricity prices

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https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finland_goes_negative_after_winds_beat_down_electricity_prices/11870589

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Image: Getty Images

High winds propelled wind power stations in the Nordics to produce electricity at full capacity between 3am and 7am on Monday, pushing electricity prices below zero.

Swedish energy company Tibber told Dagens Nyheter that favourable wind conditions brought electricity prices into negative territory. The same phenomenon occurred in Finland, according to Nordic power exchange Nord Pool.

Antti Paananen, head of markets with the Finnish Energy Authority, said this was the first time this year that electricity prices dipped below zero.

"Last year, prices were negative on three occasions, and last February was the first time in history that Finland saw negative electricity prices," he said.

Little direct benefit

Consumers whose power agreements are directly tied to the power exchange will benefit the most from the negative price dip. However, savings are likely to be minimal as electricity distribution prices still apply.

Negative electricity prices are more common in Denmark and Germany, which have more wind power capacity than Finland.

Paananen told Yle current technology does not enable the storage of electricity.

"Right now production and consumption have to be in constant balance. Solutions for storing electricity on a large scale don't exist at the moment, but the technology is constantly evolving," he explained.

In 2020, electricity prices in Finland dipped below zero for a total of nine hours over three days.

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Finland goes negative after winds beat down electricity prices

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High winds propelled wind power stations in the Nordics to produce electricity at full capacity between 3am and 7am on Monday, pushing electricity prices below zero. Swedish energy company Tibber told Dagens Nyheter that favourable wind conditions brought electricity prices into negative territory. The same phenomenon occurred in Finland, according to Nordic power exchange Nord Pool.

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Achieving climate targets while still growing economy is possible

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Achieving climate targets while still growing economy is possible

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https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/report_achieving_climate_targets_while_still_growing_economy_is_possible/11876677

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Image: Getty Images

It is possible for the world's countries to meet ambitious climate goals while at the same time achieving economic growth, according to a report issued on Friday by state innovation fund Sitra.

However, the report's authors noted, tough measures are still needed from countries to achieve goals of limiting global warming temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (or a maximum of 2 degrees), per the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The report was written by a group of economist researchers from around the world who said that it would still be possible to achieve the goals of the international treaty - without stopping economic growth.

The researchers said they disagreed with the widely-held conception that the goals of economic growth and reducing emissions were at odds with each other.

Economy grew, emissions declined

The researchers further noted that as the EU's economy grew during the years 1990-2016 by more than 50 percent, the bloc also saw a 25 percent decline in carbon emissions.

According to the group, public policies were the foundation of achieving both goals.

"There are countries where economic growth has continued as emissions have decreased," economics Professor Paul Ekins from University College London told Yle.

However a leading expert at Sitra, Saara Tamminen, said just because it is possible to combine improved climate and economic goals, it does not mean that economic growth can continue the way it has to date.

She warned that continuing current economic practices could lead to serious ecological, economic and social consequences.
Story continues after photo.

Image: UCL

Meanwhile, Professor Ekins said that achieving the 1.5-degree goal will be challenging but thinks it is still possible.

"It is very difficult to achieve what we still need to achieve. I think it is fairly unlikely that we will manage to keep it below 1.5 degrees," he said, pointing out that limiting global temperature rises to 1.6 degrees rather than 2 degrees would still be a significant achievement.

Meeting those goals will require ambitious and consistent policies across all economic sectors, but that political promises also need to become realities in the coming decades.

The report noted that in order to meet climate goals, all countries must stop using coal as an energy source, adding that new technologies need to be used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well.

Additionally, the researchers recommend that industry needs to transition to emission-free sources of energy in lieu of fossil fuels.

Ekins pointed out however that the biggest hurdles were with policy-makers as well as others, saying he was most concerned about the world's political systems and a general decline in the appreciation of science.

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Report: Achieving climate targets while still growing economy is possible

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It is possible for the world's countries to meet ambitious climate goals while at the same time achieving economic growth, according to a report issued on Friday by state innovation fund Sitra.

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Tram in Tampere and ho wit affects development

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Tram in Tampere and ho wit affects development

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https://www.tuni.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/raitiotie-nayttaa-suuntaa-tampereen-muutokselle?fbclid=IwAR2P8lKSU_SG9b44QskmWI_q1rrSNQLgbCVroGkAqIzjwS0peIpkcbzT62M

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- Aikaisemmin Tampere oli iso pikkukaupunki. Nyt se tavoittelee kasvua pieneksi suurkaupungiksi, sanoo aluetieteen dosentti Ilari Karppi.

Tampereen yliopiston hallintotieteilijät ovat jo vuodesta 2015 tutkineet raitiotiehankkeen yhteyttä muuhun kaupunkikehitykseen. Tutkimusryppääseen on kuulunut neljä eri tutkimushanketta, joissa on työskennellyt yhteensä 9 tutkijaa.

- Ajatus on ollut tutkia kestävää kaupunkikehitystä. Kyse ei ole siitä, osataanko rakentaa ratikka, pystyttää raiteet ja saada se toimimaan teknisenä järjestelmänä. Kyse ei myöskään ole vain siitä, miten kaupungin maankäyttöä suunnitellaan tai miten palveluja luodaan vaan siitä, mihin tämä kaikki yhdistyy, kiteyttää kunnallistalouden professori Jarmo Vakkuri raitiotietä koskevien tutkimushankkeiden luonteen.

Tampereen taso- tai mittakaavahyppy tarkoittaa ulospäin sitä, että kaupunki nousee kokoluokaltaan 300 000-500 000 asukkaan kaupunkien joukkoon. Tutkijat ovat havainneet, että muutos koskee myös päätöksentekoprosesseja ja kaupunkikehitystä laajemminkin.

- Tampereen ja Suomen suuri vihollinen on väestökehitys. Käynnissä on kilpajuoksu ajan kanssa, sanoo aluetieteen dosentti Ilari Karppi. Ei metropoli mutta
nykyistä suurempi
- Ette te tästä New Yorkia saa, mutta keksikää oma juttunne, neuvoi kaupunkisuunnittelun kansainvälinen guru taannoisella Tampereen-vierailullaan.

Tampereen huima kasvu näkyy ulospäin raitiotiehankkeen lisäksi valtavana rakennusbuumina, joka synnyttää kaupungin keskustaan tornitalojen rykelmän.

Kovan muutoksen seurauksena vanhat tamperelaiset eivät enää tunnista uutta kehitystä eivätkä uudet kaupunkilaiset tunne vanhaa Tamperetta. Kaupungin tulevaisuus on tutkijoidenkin mukaan vaikeasti ennustettavissa.

- Tulevaisuus riippuu siitä, miten Tampere hyötyy kasautumiseduista, kasvuun liittyvästä pöhinästä ja pystyy hallitsemaan kasvamiseen liittyviä haittoja, joita pakostakin tulee, Jarmo Vakkuri arvioi.

Tutkija Iina Sankala sanoo, että kaupungin suurhankkeilla on myös symbolista arvoa. Niiden myötä Tampere siirtyy eurooppalaisten kaupunkien asteikolla uudelle tasolle.

Tampereen uudessa tasoluokassa on tungosta. Ilari Karppi muistuttaa, että samat stadionit, liikennevälineet ja lentokenttäyhteydet on monella muullakin saman kokoluokan kaupungilla.

- Emme me voi enää isompana kaupunkina tyytyä kilpailemaan niistä pienemmistä kohteista, joista kilpailtaessa olemme jo hyviä. Me olemme nyt menossa kohti jotakin toista, Karppi sanoo.
Kasvukoneen menestys
kiinni väestökehityksestä
Tampereen tasohyppy perustuu jatkuvaan kasvuun, jota tutkijat nimittävät kasvukoneeksi. Monet laskelmat puoltavat näkemystä, että raitiotiehen laitetut eurot tulevat aikanaan moninkertaisina takaisin, kun väestö kasvaa, verotuotot nousevat ja kaupungin palvelut skaalautuvat suurempaan kokoon.

Tampereella saatettiin tutkijoiden mukaan olla liiankin varovaisia hyötylaskelmissa verrattuna Norjan Bergeniin, jossa vastaavan hankkeen kustannus-hyöty-suhde ennakoitiin jopa 14-20-kertaiseksi.

- Tampereen ja Suomen suuri vihollinen on väestökehitys. Kun väestölukuja katselee, niin Tampereella näyttäisi olevan kymmenkunta totutun kaltaisen vahvan määrällisen kasvun vuotta. Kyllähän Tampere on riskejä ottanut tekemällä isoja investointeja. Käynnissä on kuitenkin monimutkainen kilpajuoksu ajan kanssa, Ilari Karppi sanoo.

Negatiivisen väestönkasvun oloissakin jotkut seudut kasvavat ja toiset taantuvat. Tampereen kaupunkiseudun kehitys näyttää lähivuosina myönteiseltä.

Jarmo Vakkuri muistuttaa kuitenkin, että Tampereen kaupungin talous on tilinpäätöksen tasolla heikoissa kantimissa. Kasvava kaupunki joutuu investoimaan paljon päiväkoteihin, kouluihin ja muihin palveluihin.

- Kestävyyden hallinta on pitkällä aikavälillä tosi iso kysymys. Jos talouden kestävyyden ongelmaa ei ratkaista, niin investointienkin paukut ovat vähissä, Vakkuri sanoo.

- Fiksu kasvu on sitä, että ei suin päin mennä apinoimaan muita, jos ei olla varmoja siitä, että se sopii omaan pirtaan pitkällä aikavälillä, professori Jarmo Vakkuri arvioi. Ratikkaa ei tehdä
imagomielessä
Kaupungit yrittävät erottautua toisistaan markkinoimalla omia erityisvahvuuksiaan. Jarmo Vakkuri muistuttaa, ettei raitiotien kaltaisia vuosikymmenten mittaisia suunnitelmia tehdä lyhyen tähtäimen erottautumistarpeiden perusteella.

- Fiksu kasvu on sitä, että ei suin päin mennä apinoimaan muita, jos ei olla varmoja siitä, että se sopii omaan pirtaan pitkällä aikavälillä. En näe, että Tampereella on ongelmia näiden hankkeiden kannalta, Vakkuri arvioi.

Iina Sankala pohtii, onko ratikkahanketta edes mielekästä niputtaa yhteen kaupungin muiden megaluokan kehittämiskohteiden, kuten torni- ja kansihankkeiden kanssa, koska raitiotietä rakennettaessa korostuvat enemmän ilmasto- ja kestävyystavoitteet kuin kaupungin imago.

Ilari Karppi huomauttaa, että mitenkään itsestään selvästi ratikka ei ole ympäristön ja ilmaston kannalta tehokkain tapa liikuttaa ihmisiä. Nähtävissä on, että ratikalla kuitenkin legitimoidaan monia asioita, joihin sillä ei ole alkujaan edes tähdätty.

Ratikan suuri vahvuus on Karpin mukaan siinä, että vaikka se ei olisi paras mahdollinen ratkaisu missään yksittäisessä kaupunkikehityksen kannalta merkittävässä asiassa, se kytkeytyy moneen tärkeään asiaan. Raitiotie ei ole hyvä täsmälääke, sillä sen vaikutus on laaja-alainen.
Ratikka muuttaa
päätöksentekoprosessia
Tutkijat muistuttavat, että käynnissä oleva Tampereen raitiotiehanke ei ole vain tekninen liikenneratkaisu vaan kaupunkikehityshanke, joka muuttaa myös kaupungin päätöksenteon prosessia.

- Tutkimushankkeemme ovat osuneet todella kiinnostavaan vaiheeseen tämän kaupungin näkökulmasta ja toivottavasti näillä hankkeilla on myös ollut vaikutusta kehitykseen. Ratikasta puhuttiin ensimmäisinä vuosina liikennehankkeena, mutta äänensävy muuttui pian ja siitä alettiin puhua kaupunkikehityshankkeena, Iina Sankala kertoo.

Ilari Karppi vahvistaa, että Tampereen raitiotiehanketta seurataan muuallakin Suomessa ei vain teknisenä kysymyksenä vaan laajempana kaupungin päätöksentekoa ja kehitystä koskevana asiana.

- Perinteinen tapa ajatella on ymmärtää hallinto funktioittain. Toiset miettivät liikenneasioita, toiset taas palveluorganisaatiota. Jos kestävä kaupunkikehitys onkin päättäjille se isompi yhteinen kokonaisuus, niin sehän on tavallaan positiivinen sivuvaikutus, joka tästä hankkeesta syntyy, Jarmo Vakkuri sanoo.

- Ratikasta puhuttiin ensimmäisinä vuosina liikennehankkeena, mutta äänensävy muuttui pian ja siitä alettiin puhua kaupunkikehityshankkeena, kertoo tutkija Iina Sankala. Kaupunkisuunnittelu meni
uusiksi Vuoreksen ajoista
Tampereen yliopiston tutkijat nostivat jo ratikkatutkimustensa alkuvaiheessa esiin kysymyksen siitä, miten yhdistää toisiinsa eri hallinnonalojen erilaiset aikajänteet.

- Hallinnon eri sektorit toimivat erilaisella aikalogiikalla. Ratikka on useiden vuosikymmenten juttu, mutta palvelujärjestelmiä joudutaan miettimään joskus lyhyidenkin budjettikausien mukaan, Iina Sankala sanoo.

Tampereen palvelujärjestelmän perusajatus on kokenut muutoksen ratikkasuunnitelman rinnalla. Vuoreksen kaupunginosaa visioitaessa 1990-luvulla uskottiin vielä lähipalveluihin. Nyt ajattelu on kääntynyt siihen, että yksiköiden pitää olla suuria ja tehokkaita.

- Palvelumallit muuttuvat tosi nopeasti. Ne pistetään uusiksi ainakin kerran kymmenessä vuodessa. Ratikka on kuitenkin niin iso ja jäykkä investointi, että se pakottaa ajattelemaan toisin. Ratikka viitoittaa myös monen muun hallinnonalan toimintaa, Ilari Karppi muistuttaa.

Ratikan vaikutusta voi kauhistella siksi, että se lyö lukkoon kaupungin kehityksen jopa sadaksi vuodeksi. Asian toinen puoli on siinä, että ratikka luo ennustettavuutta ja varmuutta siihen, mihin kaupungissa kannattaa lähivuosina rakentaa.
Ainutlaatuista
tutkimustietoa
Raitiotien rakentamisen aikaisia vaikutuksia on maailmalla tutkittu hyvin vähän. Se on kuitenkin tärkeä tutkimuskohde, koska se on kriittinen ajanjakso kaupungin uudistumisen ja elinkeinorakenteen muuttumisen kannalta.

Helsingin raitiotietä rakennettaessa 1800-1900-luvulla ei tiettävästi vastaavia tutkimuksia tehty. Tuskin niitä osattiin edes kaivata.

Tampereen yliopiston tutkijat ovat nyt tutkineet Tampereen raitiotien rakentamisen aikaisia vaikutuksia keskustan liikkeiden toimintaan. Se tieto tulee tarpeeseen, sillä vastaavia hankkeita mietitään muuallakin.

- Nyt jännitämme rakennustyön viimeisten vaiheiden vaikutuksia ratikan reitin varrella olevien yritysten liikevaihtoon ja työllisyyteen. Toivottavasti hyvin sujunut yhteistyö Tampereen kaupungin ja elinkeinoelämän järjestöjen kanssa jatkuu. Taloustilastot tulevat aina viiveellä. Me olemme keränneet viime vuosina rakentamisalueella olevien yrittäjien kokemusperäistä dataa. Kiinnostavaa olisi tietää, kuinka ennakoivaa se on suhteessa siihen, mitä voidaan verifioida myöhemmin valmistuvalla kovalla numerodatalla, Ilari Karppi sanoo.

Päättäjät tarvitsevat tutkimustietoa rationaalisten päätösten pohjaksi. Aina se ei ole mahdollista.

- Me voimme kerätä rakentamisprosessin ajalta dataa, jonka pohjalta voi tehdä ennusteita, mutta ajatus lopullisesta laskelmasta on kaukaa haettu. Lopputulosta määrittävät niin monet muutkin tekijät, että mekaanisia laskelmia on aika vaikea tehdä, Jarmo Vakkuri muistuttaa.

Teksti: Heikki Laurinolli
Kuvat: Jonne Renvall

Tampereen yliopiston raitiotietutkimukset Kaupunki raiteilla -sivustolla

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Raitiotie näyttää suuntaa Tampereen muutokselle | Tampereen korkeakouluyhteisö

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Aikaisemmin Tampere oli iso pikkukaupunki. Nyt se tavoittelee kasvua pieneksi suurkaupungiksi, sanoo aluetieteen dosentti Ilari Karppi. Tampereen yliopiston hallintotieteilijät ovat jo vuodesta 2015 tutkineet raitiotiehankkeen yhteyttä muuhun kaupunkikehitykseen. Tutkimusryppääseen on kuulunut neljä eri tutkimushanketta, joissa on työskennellyt yhteensä 9 tutkijaa. - Ajatus on ollut tutkia kestävää kaupunkikehitystä.

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https://www.tuni.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/mita-kaupungeissa-syodaan-vuonna-2030-mista-ruoka-tulee

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Anna palautetta!

Kehitämme sivustoamme jatkuvasti ja kaikki palaute on arvokasta. Kerrothan myös, jos huomaat sivustolla virheitä. Jos toivot, että vastaamme viestiisi, muista liittää mukaan sähköpostiosoitteesi.

Koulutuksiimme liittyvissä kysymyksissä olethan yhteydessä suoraan admissions.tau [at] tuni.fi tai admissions.tamk [at] tuni.fi . Tunnuksiin ja muihin IT-palveluihin liittyvissä ongelmissa auttaa IT Helpdesk.

Palaute (pakollinen kenttä)

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Mitä kaupungeissa syödään vuonna 2030? Mistä ruoka tulee? | Tampereen korkeakouluyhteisö

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Tampereen kaupunki, Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu, Ahlman ja Ekokumppanit saivat EU:lta yli miljoonan euron rahoituksen Fostering the Urban Food System Transformation through Innovative Living Labs Implementation (FUSILLI) -hankkeeseen. Kansainvälinen hanke luotsaa eurooppalaisia kaupunkialueita kohti terveitä, kestäviä ja turvallisia ruokajärjestelmiä sekä tukee näitä edistävää kaupunkipolitiikkaa.

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Green spaces aren’t just for nature – they boost our mental health too

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Green spaces aren’t just for nature – they boost our mental health too

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https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933270-800-green-spaces-arent-just-for-nature-they-boost-our-mental-health-too/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1617284386

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We're beginning to understand just how vital access to natural space is for our mental well-being - with implications for how we design cities worldwide

Jochen Tack/Alamy

FROM the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the orange gardens of Seville, urban planners down the ages have taken inspiration from nature. And those of us living in the concrete and brick jungle have perhaps never appreciated scraps of green space more than during the covid-19 pandemic. During lockdowns, city dwellers across the world have found parks and gardens - where they exist an unexpected source of calm and joy.

That comes as no surprise to the growing number of psychologists and ecologists studying the effects of nature on people's mental health and well-being. The links they are uncovering are complex, and not yet fully understood. But even as the pandemic has highlighted them, it has also exposed that, in an increasingly urbanised world, our access to nature is dwindling - and often the most socio-economically deprived people face the biggest barriers. Amid talk about building back better, there is an obvious win-win-win here. Understand how to green the world's urban spaces the right way and it can boost human well-being, help redress social inequality and be a boon for the biodiversity we all depend on.

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On evolutionary timescales, urban living is a new invention. Our species has existed for at least 300,000 years, but the oldest cities are only some 6000 years old. Only recently - little more than a decade ago, according to figures from the UN Population Division - have we become a majority-urban species. Now the number of us living in cities is booming like never before. By 2050, projections suggest almost 70 per cent of us will be urban dwellers (see "Urban latecomers").

Our late arrival into cities might help explain our affinity with nature and green spaces. In 1984, biologist Edward O. Wilson made this connection explicit with his "biophilia" hypothesis. His idea was that the environment in which humans evolved has shaped our brain, priming it to respond positively to cues that would have enhanced survival for our ancestors, such as trees, savannah, lakes and waterways. This, Wilson argued, is why being in nature makes us feel good.

Whether that is the reason or not, the past few years have seen an explosion of research finding concrete links between increased exposure to nature and not just improved physical health, but better mental health, too. Mental health issues are estimated to account for as much as a third of all years lived with disability, and account for around 13 per cent of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost, similar to the toll of cardiovascular disease and circulatory disorders.

Getty Images

The evidence of positive effects from nature includes studies on specific psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety and mood disorder. Access to nature has also been found to improve sleep and reduce stress, increase happiness and reduce negative emotions, promote positive social interactions and even help generate a sense of meaning to life. Being in green environments boosts various aspects of thinking, including attention, memory and creativity, in people both with and without depression. "The evidence is very solid," says psychologist Marc Berman at the University of Chicago.

Complications in comparing studies and saying exactly what's good for whom makes it hard to distil the effects into an individual prescription (see " How much nature do I need?"). In the UK's remote Shetland Islands, however, they are doing just that: since 2018, doctors there have been able to prescribe nature-based activities such as birdwatching and beach walks to treat mental health conditions and stress, as well as physical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. They aren't alone, either: a review in 2019 identified 28 nature-based interventions used in various countries to improve health and well-being, from organised gardening programmes to forest bathing.

If we are to maximise the benefits of nature for the world's legion of nature-deprived city dwellers, we need to know exactly how they work. Here, too, there appears to be no simple answer.

Urban vegetation can benefit people's physical health by absorbing harmful airborne particulates and other pollutants produced by fossil fuel-powered transport and industry. It may improve mental health in this way as well. Evidence is emerging that exposure to these pollutants can damage the central nervous system and is linked with certain mental health conditions such as depression. Urban vegetation also helps mitigate noise pollution, which causes stress and sleep disturbance.

Paying attention

Another possibility is that the mental health effect is mediated via physical health: urban residents living near green spaces simply take more exercise, which in turn improves their mental health. But most research suggests otherwise. In many cultures, visiting green spaces is less associated with physical exercise than with sedentary social activities, such as picnicking. That could be a source of nature's benefits in its own right: socialising can reduce loneliness, anxiety and depression. Certainly, being part of a supportive community is good for mental health - and research shows that attractive public spaces are a catalyst for building cohesive neighbourhoods.

Intriguingly, some well-being effects do seem to be entirely psychological. Just this year, researchers in Switzerland found that simply having a view of nature from your home can reduce your perception of noise - and the closer the green space, the bigger the effect. Attention restoration theory is the name given to one hypothesis that attempts to explain such effects. It says that everyday focused thinking is cognitively draining, with negative consequences for mood, and that the wide range of stimuli intrinsic to nature provide a restorative sensory environment that alleviates this attention fatigue.

"Some of the well-being effects of nature seem to be entirely psychological"

But that is as yet educated guesswork. "There's a lot going on. We have to be creative with our studies to try to isolate the different mechanisms," says Berman.

And it is only half the story. Besides mental health benefits, we know that healthy natural spaces provide us with a whole range of essential "ecosystem services" for free, from clean air and water to nutrient recycling, flood defence and pollination. Ideally, in designing or reconfiguring urban environments, we should aim to maximise the benefits for biodiversity too. How do we do that?

That is always going to be a trade-off because cities occupy land that could be wild, says ecologist Karl Evans at the University of Sheffield, UK. "Urbanisation is a major and increasing cause of global extinction risk," he says. What's more, we have a limited understanding of urban ecology upon which conservation-minded planners can draw. In 2017, Evans and his colleagues highlighted some fundamental questions yet to be resolved. These include how large, connected and diverse urban green spaces must be to promote biodiversity. Many animal species need access to different types of habitat to thrive. "It's not just about the amount, it's about the quality of those spaces," says Evans.

He points out that about half the green space in urban environments in the UK is just closely mown grass, a pattern repeated in many Western cities. "You could convert this to meadows or plant more trees," he says. In a study of urban meadows in the south of England, his team found that people responded more positively to the more-biodiverse meadows than to mown grassland. Similarly, a recent study led by landscape architect Anna Jorgensen, also at the University of Sheffield, concludes that what urbanites, at least in the UK, most value in their encounters with nature is variety.

We still don't know whether increased biodiversity equates to increased mental health benefits for urban dwellers. But incomplete as these findings are, they nevertheless make a strong case for greening cities. "People think of nature as being an amenity, not a necessity," says Berman. "But we all need it and we need to take it very seriously." Environmental engineer Anu Ramaswami at Princeton University agrees. She says green public spaces are one of seven key provisioning systems in cities, along with shelter, water, food, energy, connectivity and sanitation. "I think they are exactly on par," she says. "People need green spaces."

This is something that enlightened urban planning has long taken to heart, from the UK's Garden City movement at the turn of the 20th century to the recently announced plan to turn Paris's Champs-élysées, currently a busy thoroughfare, into a green oasis. Our evolving understanding of nature's broad health benefits, plus our ongoing pandemic experience, is a wake-up call to apply that lesson more widely.

"The pandemic has shown that we don't have enough [access to nature]," says Berman. That is especially true for people in more deprived socio-economic groups. "Access to green infrastructure is very income-based," says Ramaswami. A recent survey by Natural England, for example, found that children from low-income families spent less time outside in green spaces during the pandemic than children from higher-income families.

Meanwhile, a study by Berman and his colleagues in Toronto, Canada, found that adding just 10 trees to a city block has a huge impact on people's perceptions of their health and well-being, equivalent to the effect of earning $10,000 more per household. If urban greening were an investment priority, it needn't take much to have a big impact, with the most disadvantaged benefiting the most.

Nick Hannes/Panos Pictures

So, what does an ideal green city of tomorrow look like? "I would think of compact, walkable cities," says Ramaswami. "You want four or five-storey buildings in a liveable fabric. That's the base. Then you include green spaces that are accessible and equitable." Berman says it is important to make green spaces multipurpose so they meet a variety of needs. He also favours incorporating more natural elements into the built environment, such as green roofs, and even designing buildings that mimic patterns found in nature such as curves and fractals. Research using eye-trackers indicates that people are drawn to such shapes, and Berman thinks there is something about the way our brains process the aesthetic of nature that is comforting.

Advocating for nature itself, Evans's utopia is quite similar, emphasising building compactly to minimise the amount of land taken by cities. "A model green city for me would be one that was relatively densely packed," he says. "But the green space within it would be highly connected and extremely high quality and, crucially, highly accessible to all sectors of society."

Realising such visions won't be easy. Evans says it is incredibly hard to retrofit existing cities to match his ideal, and he doubts that new urban areas will be built with such a brief in mind. "I don't think biodiversity conservation needs are given high enough priority to make that a realistic prospect," he says.

But Ramaswami is more optimistic. She notes that the trend for urban greening has already begun, pointing to some inspiring examples in the US, including the Million Trees Los Angeles initiative and an ambitious greening programme in New York.

mixetto/Getty Images

This isn't just a richer-world phenomenon, either. Most urban growth in the next decades will occur in lower-income nations. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, which aims to increase urban gardening around the world, has 211 cities signed up, many in Africa, South America and South-East Asia. China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment, established in 2018, has made fighting pollution one of its three critical battles, spurring the building of parks, green spaces and wildlife corridors in many cities. Admittedly, lower-income countries face many challenges in building greener cities, but they can learn from the mistakes already made in older-growth cities in the West, says Ramaswami. "There's a lot of opportunity for sustainability in developing cities," she says.

Urban greening

Some researchers are thinking of new ways to get policy-makers across the world to value nature more. Biologist Gretchen Daily at Stanford University in California pioneered the concept of ecosystem services as a way of evaluating the benefits nature provides and factoring these values into economic decision-making. In conjunction with Berman and others, she published a paper in 2019 outlining how this approach could be used to put a price on the mental health benefits of nature in cities. "The intense pressure on urban land means we need to invest strategically," she says. Daily has founded the Natural Capital Project, which offers free science-based computer programs to guide such investments. "Software modules on health are being tested now for release in the first half of 2021," she says.

"How we plan cities now will affect the well-being of billions in the future"

But it will take more than policy-makers to push urban greening up the agenda. "We need a grassroots movement," says Berman. Community involvement ensures that different cultural and local needs are met, says Ramaswami. "You want the imagination of those people in those communities to think of their own vision."

geogif/Getty Images/iStockphoto

In some parts of the world, that is already happening: the economically disadvantaged favelas of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, for example, are home to a burgeoning forestation movement. A common problem, however, is that people don't know about the benefits of nature, says Berman. "Scientists need to work a bit harder to get out of the ivory tower, to get their message across," he says. "It's important to talk to communities. It's not going to work to be paternalistic."

And it isn't just about knowledge: people need to also experience the effect that urban green spaces have on their sense of well-being. "If we can do interventions where we can encourage people to try it, then I think they will buy in," says Berman.

That is why the pandemic could be such a powerful force for change. "Our planning - today and into the future - will affect the well-being of billions of people," says Daily. And if we can build back greener, that will create a virtuous circle. Recent studies from both China and England find that feeling more connected with nature makes people more likely to adopt positive environmental behaviours. If so, then greener cities won't just improve the mental health of their residents, but also focus our minds on the needs of nature beyond our urban jungles.

HOW MUCH NATURE DO I NEED?

When it comes to pinning down the link between well-being and access to nature, there are big confounding factors. To begin with, what is psychological well-being? The World Health Organization defines mental health as "a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community". That is hard to quantify.

Then there is the question of what "access to nature" means. Some studies measure passive access, or how much green space is available in someone's local area. Others look at active access, which is the actual exposure a person gets to green space. That makes it difficult to compare results and build a coherent picture.

A few researchers have tried to assess what the appropriate dose of nature might be. A 2019 study involving almost 20,000 participants in England concluded that at least 120 minutes a week of recreational nature contact was associated with good health or well-being. The team, led by Mathew White at the University of Exeter, UK, found that the effect peaks at between 200 and 300 minutes a week, with people reporting no further gain after that.

What exactly this means for you - or any individual - is unclear. As other studies indicate, the mental health benefits a person gets from access to nature are likely to be influenced by myriad factors, including age, gender, personality traits, personal preferences and socio-economic status. Your culture matters too - and, so far, most research into the well-being effects of nature has been done in Western societies.

About this feature

This feature is the fourth in our "Rescue Plan for Nature" series produced in association with the United Nations Environment Programme and UNEP partner agency GRID-Arendal. New Scientist retains full editorial control over, and responsibility for, the content. The fifth and final part of the series, on 10 April, will look at the links between climate change and biodiversity loss.

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Green spaces aren't just for nature - they boost our mental health too

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We're beginning to understand just how vital access to natural space is for our mental well-being - with implications for how we design cities worldwide FROM the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the orange gardens of Seville, urban planners down the ages have taken inspiration from nature.

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The ‘embodied carbon’ in the building of glass and steel blocks makes them anything but green.  

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The ‘embodied carbon’ in the building of glass and steel blocks makes them anything but green.  

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The dirty secret of so-called 'fossil-fuel free' buildings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
anging plants smother the walls of a new office block proposed for Salford, giving it the look of something from an abandoned post-Covid city, reclaimed by nature. The ivy-covered tower, designed by Make Architects, has been trumpeted as "fossil-fuel free", set to run on 100% renewable energy and reach net zero operational carbon, with tenants enjoying the "biophilic" benefits of dangling foliage. But not everyone is convinced.

"It's strange to see something described as 'fossil-fuel free' when it is made of concrete, steel and glass," says Joe Giddings, coordinator of the Architects Climate Action Network (Acan) campaign group. "The production of these materials entails burning a huge amount of fossil fuel.

"The climate emergency is not a game and we can't just spin our way through it. We need to think about where our materials come from, how they're made and interrogate the whole supply chain - from construction to demolition and reuse."

In the race to reach net zero carbon by 2050, a commitment to which the UK is legally bound, Acan sees the biggest unchallenged obstacle as the energy consumed by construction. Much is made of the proposed energy efficiency of buildings once they are occupied, but so far very little attention has been paid to the carbon emitted in getting them built, and eventually dismantled - from extracting raw materials and manufacturing components, to the toxic byproducts of demolition leaking out in landfill.

Acan estimates that this "embodied carbon" accounts for up to three-quarters of a building's total emissions over its lifespan, a proportion that is only going to grow as the energy grid becomes increasingly decarbonised with the rise of renewables. With the built environment contributing about 45% of the total carbon emitted in the UK, the embodied energy of construction has become the vital element to focus on.

"Government regulation is really lagging behind," says the architect Simon Sturgis, founder of carbon consultancy Targeting Zero. "Over the next 60 to 70 years the most immediate problem will be construction emissions, and it's something that is not even considered by the building regulations at the moment.

"It is quite straightforward to address: very significant carbon reductions can be made for very little cost."

Glass-walled office towers have glazing systems that are often only guaranteed to last for 30 years. Photograph: Steve Tulley/Alamy

Sturgis recently co-authored a section of the new London Plan, which mandates a "whole life-cycle carbon" assessment for new developments for the first time - a policy used in the Netherlands since 2013. No targets have been set, but developers of big schemes referred to the mayor will now have to calculate the projected emissions of their proposals over their entire lifespan, including construction, demolition and disposal, and show how they have tried to reduce the carbon consumption.

"It's about choosing things slightly more carefully," says Sturgis. "Using less concrete and more timber, or specifying recycled aluminium for window frames.

"It's also crucial to understand the relationship between improving operational emissions and the carbon costs of doing so. Triple-glazed windows might reduce heating requirements, but their embodied carbon is vast."

'Triple-glazed windows might reduce heating requirements, but their embodied carbon is vast'

He is highly critical of glass-walled office towers, arguing that, while they may boast environmental credentials, they have a huge amount of built-in obsolescence, given that their glazing systems are often only guaranteed to last for 30 years. You would expect these towers to last at least a century," he says, "but they have a big embodied cost when these deep, triple-glazed units will have to be replaced so often."

As it stands, there is no incentive for manufacturers to make their components last longer.

Despite the lack of regulation, there is a growing consensus in the industry that more has to be done. The major professional bodies - including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Institution of Structural Engineers and the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers - have all provided guidance on embodied carbon assessment, and called on the government to intervene.

Developers of the Leadenhall Building (the 'cheese grater') in the City of London recently introduced an internal levy on its carbon emissions. Photograph: Tareq Mooradun (@tmnikonian)/Reuters

The environmental engineer Clara Bagenal George recently produced a guidance document for assessing the embodied carbon of building services equipment (including heating, lighting, plumbing, etc), a crucial part of the jigsaw that has largely been ignored until now.

"When you do a retrofit project, the services equipment can represent 80% of the embodied carbon," she says. "It's the hidden element, which often needs upgrading over time."

Building services and plants typically use a high proportion of steel, aluminium, plastics and copper in their construction, as well as rare earth elements for key components, such as permanent magnets in motors and phosphors for lamps. Solar panels, for examples, often contain lead, cadmium and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel, while there are difficulties in recycling the glass due to impurities.

The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated there was about 250,000 tonnes of solar panel waste in the world in 2016, and has projected the amount could reach 78m tonnes by 2050. Insulation is another testy topic. The most efficient, foamed plastic type of insulation is also the most polluting, with as much as a tenfold difference in embodied carbon between synthetic and natural alternatives, says Sturgis.

In the absence of national policy, it seems hard-nosed financial incentives are encouraging developers to act. With the increased prevalence of green finance options, and conditions recommended by the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, proof of a climate-conscious approach is becoming necessary to secure certain sources of funding.

British Land, developer of the Leadenall Building (the "cheese grater" tower) in the City of London, recently introduced an internal levy on its carbon emissions, essentially taxing the carbon of its own projects to create a fund that is used to retrofit its existing building stock. It has also linked its employees' annual bonuses to the embodied carbon figures, which has already resulted in a preference for refurbishment over demolition.

The government's new future homes standard makes no mention of embodied carbon, but there is a growing group of MPs calling for change. Last week, the environmental audit committee launched an inquiry focused specifically on the carbon footprint of construction and the sustainability of the materials used. It follows on from a report last month in which the committee recommended introducing embodied carbon targets for the construction of new homes, so as to increase demand for low-carbon materials.

It also recommended cutting VAT on refurbishment, which has long been urged by the industry, as it is often the deciding factor in whether to demolish or retrofit: at present, new builds are VAT-exempt but renovations are not.

"One positive of the pandemic is that it has made people realise that rapid change is possible, and often desirable," says Sturgis. "Government departments are all scrambling to find out more about zero carbon. It seems that Boris Johnson has realised that Joe Biden is all over the climate agenda, so he'd better get all over it too."

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The dirty secret of so-called 'fossil-fuel free' buildings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
anging plants smother the walls of a new office block proposed for Salford, giving it the look of something from an abandoned post-Covid city, reclaimed by nature. The ivy-covered tower, designed by Make Architects, has been trumpeted as "fossil-fuel free", set to run on 100% renewable energy and reach net zero operational carbon, with tenants enjoying the "biophilic" benefits of dangling foliage.

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Image: Mikko Savolainen / Yle

A panel set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has proposed a blueprint for phasing out the use of peat as an energy source.

The panel handed over its report to Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä (Cen) on Wednesday.

According to the government programme, the energy use of peat must be at least halved by 2030 due to its high greenhouse gas emissions. The proposals will next be considered by the cabinet.

The working group called for a one-off waiver package for companies in the sector.

It also recommended partial state compensation paid to peat producers for unsold stock, the purchase of privately owned or leased peat production areas by the state forest agency Metsähallitus and the establishment of a panel to set compensation levels for disposing of peat production equipment, among other measures.

1,700 jobs at stake

Adjustment allowances should also be paid to entrepreneurs who halt peat production, and early retirement options for older entrepreneurs should also be clarified, the committee said.

In December, the Bioenergy Association of Finland estimated that some 1,700 people were directly employed in peat production and transport, primarily in northern Finland.

The working group also proposed support for the transition of peat companies to new businesses, which could be partly funded by the EU's Just Transition Mechanism (JTM).

The JTM, which is part of the European Green Deal, "aims to alleviate the social and economic costs resulting from the transition towards a climate-neutral economy", according to a European Commission statement. It has a budget of 17.5 billion euros.

Dirtier than coal

As part of the government's emissions-cutting programme, the use of peat as energy is to be at least halved by 2030. Burning peat for electricity emits more carbon dioxide than coal.

The centre-left cabinet has pledged that Finland will achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.

It has predicted that the use of peat as an energy source will end in the 2030s due to the higher cost of the emissions allowance, although "it will remain in use to ensure security of supply".

The cabinet has promised to overhaul the taxation of peat as part of a general energy tax reform.

Instead of incinerating peat, the government aims to increase its use in "innovative, high added-value products" in a manner that is "fair at the regional and social levels".

According to Statistics Finland, the use of peat as an energy source fell by nine percent in 2019 to just four percent of total energy consumption.

In the first three quarters of last year, it fell by a further 25 percent to three percent of overall energy consumption. Meanwhile Finland's use of renewable energy rose to the EU's second-highest level last year, behind Sweden.

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Ministry unveils plan to phase out peat burning in Finland

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A panel set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has proposed a blueprint for phasing out the use of peat as an energy source. The panel handed over its report to Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä (Cen) on Wednesday.

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New energy policies are urgently needed to put countries on the path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's leading energy economist has warned, as economies are rapidly gearing up for a return to fossil fuel use instead of forging a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most of the world's biggest economies now have long-term goals of reaching net zero by mid-century, but few have the policies required to meet those goals, said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA's latest figures show global coal use was about 4% higher in the last quarter of 2020 than in the same period in 2019, the clearest indication yet of a potentially disastrous rebound in the use of the dirtiest fossil fuels, following last year's lockdowns around the world when emissions plummeted.

Birol told the Guardian: "We are not on track for a green recovery, just the opposite. We have seen global emissions higher in December 2020 than in December 2019. As long as countries do not put the right energy policies in place, the economic rebound will see emissions significantly increase in 2021. We will make the job of reaching net zero harder."

He urged governments to support clean energy and technology such as electric vehicles, and make fossil fuels less economically attractive. "Governments must provide clear signals to investors around the world that investing in dirty energy will mean a greater risk of losing money. This unmistakable signal needs to be given by policymakers to regulators, investors and others," he said.

The IEA is holding a meeting of governments on Wednesday to sketch out net zero plans. The UK, host of the Cop26 UN climate talks later this year, will urge countries that have not yet adopted net zero targets - including India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia - to take on such commitments, and ask all countries to come up with targets for emissions reductions in the next 10 years that will pave the way to the long-term goal.

Alok Sharma, the UK minister who is president of the Cop26 summit, wrote in the Guardian recently that both long-term net zero targets and short-term 2030 plans would be needed from all countries for the talks to succeed.

Birol said stronger 2030 targets were essential to meet net zero. "Looking at the energy sector, the next 10 years will be very, very critical," he said. "If governments put money in clean energy finance, in the context of their economic recovery plans, that will make the challenge less difficult."

He called on the US to lead the way on setting out a national plan, called a nationally determined contribution (NDC), for cutting emissions strongly in the next 10 years. "NDCs should be ambitious, credible, accountable and backed with credible energy policies," he said. "The US's current NDC is not ambitious enough, and not in line with the US leading an international climate campaign."

Birol also urged governments to put in place strong policies to discourage drivers from buying SUVs, which make up nearly half of all cars sold in key economies. The US led the switch to SUVs, but the vehicles - which can emit a third more carbon dioxide than smaller cars - are now increasingly popular in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in large emerging economies including China and India.

"It will not be possible to reach our climate goals if SUV sales continue at these rates," he said. "We must either change the technology, to electric vehicles, or change tax policies to provide financial disincentives to consumers to go for the SUV option."

In the UK, the National Audit Office found that greenhouse gas emissions from cars had declined by only 1% since 2011, largely as a result of the widespread switch to SUVs. The UK government has also come under fire from campaigners for reducing electric vehicle incentives while freezing duties on petrol and diesel fuel.

The UK is also hosting a conference on climate and development this week, in the run-up to Cop26. Ministers from around the world will attend virtually and donor countries will be encouraged to come forward with plans to support the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown.

Britain will need the support of more than 130 developing countries to make Cop26 a success. Green campaigners have written to the government to warn that cuts to the overseas aid budget risk undermining confidence in the UK's presidency.

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Urgent policies needed to steer countries to net zero, says IEA chief

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New energy policies are urgently needed to put countries on the path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's leading energy economist has warned, as economies are rapidly gearing up for a return to fossil fuel use instead of forging a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Ever since governments at the 2015 Paris climate summit set 1.5°C as the desired limit for global warming, scientists and journalists alike have regularly asked whether it is achievable. The question arose again recently when the UN published a report of national emission-cutting pledges for the next decade. It will be posed regularly before the publication of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report in July - a synthesis of the most recent information scientists can offer on climate change - and the UN climate summit in November.

Science is already clear that the 1.5°C target can be met. But science cannot say whether it will be met. The outcome depends on two things we cannot know with precision: how sensitive the climate system is to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and how quickly the world will cut emissions.

Humanity has little sway over climate sensitivity. But on the second issue - what we do about emissions - humanity clearly holds the lever of influence.

The recent UN report showed that governments are not pushing that lever on short-term emissions hard enough. Only 40% of countries have so far set a new emission-cutting target for 2030, as they are due to under the Paris Agreement. Collectively, they are pledging to bring emissions down by 1% below 2010 levels rather than the 45% proposed by the IPCC as being compatible with meeting the 1.5°C limit.

Yet, since autumn 2020, China, the EU, the US, Japan and South Korea have all pledged to reach net zero emissions around mid-century. If they follow through, that would halve the gap to the 1.5°C target - and that's without factoring in the wider effect on global markets, investment and prices that will inevitably follow.

EPA-EFE/Jerome Favre

So the future is not set, and much will depend on decisions made in these next few crucial years.

While scientists might be tempted to spend much of 2021 arguing whether the Paris Agreement's limit is feasible, having this as a live debate could itself lower our chances of delivering the target.

Consensus and empowerment

The chances of stopping warming at 1.5°C increase the faster the global community cuts greenhouse gas emissions to zero. And how fast we do that depends on the interrelated actions of a huge mix of people - government ministers most importantly, but also business chiefs, investors, banks, religious leaders, activists and citizens. The last few years have seen efforts accelerate across those constituencies, from the establishment of financial mechanisms by the UN to the Fridays for Future movement.

Across these initiatives, one inescapable fact is how central the 1.5°C target now is. The open letter that Fridays for Future sent to political leaders in 2020 referred to the 1.5°C limit five times, and not at all to the other Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming "well below 2°C". When deciding their net zero emissions targets, the governments of the UK and New Zealand both explicitly referred to the 1.5°C limit as the global "guardrail" and set their national decarbonisation trajectories accordingly. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, exhorts governments and businesses to meet this goal specifically rather than "well below 2°C."

So to claim that 1.5°C is out of reach would be to undercut all of those initiatives and many others - to tell them all, from minister to investor to youth activist, that they are doomed to fail.

Social science tells us a lot about the effects of different types of messaging on climate action, including on two issues that are significant here: consensus and empowerment.

From climate change to vaccination, a consensus message from scientists increases public faith and willingness to act. We're seeing how mixed messaging damages trust right now with the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. Would climate contrarians have put so much effort into undermining the perception of consensus among climate scientists were not the perception of consensus important to decarbonisation?

EPA-EFE/Valentin Flauraud

The world stands a better chance of tackling climate change if people feel they have a chance of succeeding. Academic research backs up this common sense. A major study in 2020 showed how the "we cannot do it" argument works to delay action, noting that such statements "can result in a paralysing state of shock and resignation", which is a deterrent to active engagement in solutions. Research also shows that public disengagement is the inevitable result of a perceived sense of conflict among scientists. This may be the intent of people wishing to delay climate action, but it's presumably not an outcome that scientists who support decarbonisation seek.

Read more: Climate denial hasn't gone away - here's how to spot arguments for delaying climate action

The IPCC is perhaps the biggest consensus-forming initiative in the whole of science. Its 2018 Special Report found 1.5°C achievable and, judging from private conversations, this year's report is unlikely to close the door.

So will our species succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5°C and so stave off some of the more crippling effects of climate change? No one can possibly know. Can we succeed? As former US president Barack Obama once said: "Yes, we can." And knowing that we can makes it more likely that we will.

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Climate crisis: keeping hope of 1.5°C limit alive is vital to spurring global action

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Ever since governments at the 2015 Paris climate summit set 1.5°C as the desired limit for global warming, scientists and journalists alike have regularly asked whether it is achievable. The question arose again recently when the UN published a report of national emission-cutting pledges for the next decade.

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Along with concerns about our environment, new movements, words, concepts, and terms related to these issues constantly emerge, which require us to always remain up to date. The word sustainability itself faced some resistance until it was incorporated into common vocabulary and used widely in the most diverse contexts. Currently, much discussion surrounds the terms circular economy, resilience, the 4 Rs, urban mining, and others. In addition, there are some sustainability-related movements that have been incorporated from activism in other fields, showing the fluidity of such issues. One such initiative is the 0 kilometer materials movement, which has been featured in manifestos and some projects, albeit timidly, in recent times.

The term km 0, or 0 km, was derived from the Slow Food movement. As a clear counterpoint to fast food chains, the idea of the movement is to promote the consumption of local ingredients, reducing the distance between producers and consumers. With this mission, it seeks to reduce damage to the environment caused by monoculture and the emissions of carbon dioxide / consumption of fossil fuels caused by the transportation of these products. In addition, Slow Food seeks to encourage the production and consumption of local and seasonal ingredients, maintaining regional customs and fostering a greater connection to and appreciation of the food.

Zero km materials take a very similar approach. These are materials that can be purchased locally, that do not need to be transformed, and, at the end of their useful life, that can be returned to the environment. In other words, the movement encourages the use of local products and, preferably, those that have not undergone major stages of industrial processing. The 0 km architecture approach primarily aims to provide more sustainable, healthy, economical, and socially accessible buildings that are strongly linked to the identity of their site.

For example, at Casa Ter in Spain, the walls are made of 0 km materials: they utilize a mixture of concrete and stones from a nearby river alongside ceramics, a material with a long cultural tradition in the neighboring La Bisbal, where the production of this material constitutes one of the area's main economic activities.

Brick was also the predominant material used in a project by Pietro Carlo Pellegrini Architetto. The office pursued an energy recovery approach, searching for materials found within "0 km." The brick was chosen as a strong reminder of old brick ovens and was not only used as masonry, but as Brise soleil, attesting to its versatility, its contemporary use and, therefore, its beauty.

The 21st Century Vernacular House, from the office with the evocative name of Edra arquitectura km0, is inspired by old local clay constructions, especially their orientation, morphology, and use of local materials. The technique used for the project is tapioca calicostrada, a traditional ancient technique based on the construction of structural walls using unmanufactured earth, with additions of straw for greater thermal comfort. "A life cycle analysis has shown a 50% reduction of CO2 emissions. Local materials like stone, earth, and straw represent 80% of the weight of the building. Hydraulic lime, roof tiles, wood, and sheep's wool have also been used, obtained from an area within a 150 km radius. The house includes passive solar strategies as windows specially designed for an efficient use of natural light, thermo-insulating blinds, cistern for reutilization of rain water, thermal accumulator clay plastering, biomass heating boiler, etc."

The 0 km concept is also used in the fields of design and fashion. As described in the Manifesto on Architecture and Philosophy of Kilometer Zero, by Fernando Menis and Dulce Xerach, "It is a commitment to the raw truth of the materials that make up each concept of an architectural project, a commitment to research the benefits of culture for a better future; it is a response to the problems of architecture and society that stands before life, prevalent in the doubts of any time of crisis. "

Although there are different terms and movements constantly emerging, they often overlap in their causes, and a common theme is to seek to balance our highly connected and globalized world with one that manages to maintain its quality of life for future generations, especially with regard to biodiversity, identity, and preserved local cultures. "Act locally, think globally."

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Zero Kilometer Materials: Preserving the Environment and Local Cultures

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Along with concerns about our environment, new movements, words, concepts, and terms related to these issues constantly emerge, which require us to always remain up to date. The word sustainability itself faced some resistance until it was incorporated into common vocabulary and used widely in the most diverse contexts.

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Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUc2h8k0dYc
Everything needs to change is the main title of a co-edited RIBA volume that Sofie Pelsmakers and Nick Newman (an ex-student of Sofie's and now a well-known architect-activist in the UK) guest edited in the past year, focusing on solutions to the current climatic, environmental and social challenges we face. It was commissioned before the pandemic changed the world as most of us know it.

Since then the connection between nature and humanity has become even clearer: every minute of the day our human activities extract resources from our surroundings that pollute the rivers, the air we breathe and the land we rely on. Typically each architectural project contributes to this exploitative world. The facts are clear about how our industry contributes to the climate crisis: the design and construction of buildings uses around 40% of the EU's energy and is responsible for around 36% CO ₂ emissions as we still rely on the burning of fossil fuels to heat spaces and light rooms. Hence, the impact of our built environment on the planet is significant, but so is therefore the potential for change.

The pandemic has also shown even more clearly how our built environment affects our health and well-being, and has made visible existing inequalities. Those of us lucky enough to benefit from a good quality living environment have found working, studying, schooling and socialising from home far less problematic than others who have been confined in lower quality environments (e.g. unadaptable spaces with inadequate (internal or external) space and natural light and/or compromised auditory privacy etc.).
Sustainability through seven lenses
Moreover, the decisions we make in Europe affects people and ecosystems thousands of miles away: our hunger for fossil fuels leads to low-lying countries being flooded and we drive deforestation in other countries with our demand for cheap building materials and biofuels that we ship half-way across the world. In making these decisions we not only ignore the ecological costs, but also the human cost by ignoring the lower environmental standards and human rights of political regimes we implicitly support. We clearly have a local but also a global responsibility as citizens, yet we seem to ignore this when we enter the architecture studio.

In the new Sustainable Architecture masters course, we tried to open up discussion about these issues, and to co-create a renewed understanding. We learned that sustainable architecture is not a building typology; it is not about 'eco bling' thoughtlessly applied on roofs or in homes. Sustainable architecture need not be a building at all: it may very well be the decision not to build one in the first place. Sustainable architecture is first and foremost a critical attitude and new way of thinking about our living environments and local and global contexts.

As Jieun Bae, 2020 Sustainable Architecture course alumnus, reflects: " During my study of sustainable architecture, the best lesson is that there is no such a magic rule that makes my design sustainable. There is only a rule that good sustainable designs come from context-specified and comprehensive approaches." And " As a future architect, it is important to know how powerful the building designs can be and be responsible to take one more look to make them better. "

Reflection on sustainable architecture education by Krista Kailajärvi"The course on sustainable architecture was enlightening. It revealed the complexity of this issue and how absurd it is just to think of it as numbers. Fair enough there are emission goals and energy usage that can be easily measured. But there really is no objective way of measuring quality of life, long haul effects on biodiversity nor the health of the community as whole. The first step is to acknowledge the issues that often are disregarded and that is something this course really was good for. But even that is no good if we aren't given enough means to make a change. I think the most frustrating thing about sustainability is that we're told about it but aren't given enough tools to fix things. We need more knowledge about the construction solutions, their costs and their benefits. We need to be taught to make arguments for those better solutions. We need more cross faculty courses so we can learn to interact and cooperate with the specialists of other fields on construction. Too often we are told that we are the ones that need to make the difference, but I don't think it needs to be that way. We are all in this together."It makes me happy that we have a course completely devoted to sustainability issues. A lot of times sustainability seems to be run over by aesthetical or even more often financial goals. During the past years sustainable solutions have became part of almost every assignment we have at school. However, we don't get quite enough education about them. A lot of times making sustainable choices means we have to find out about them ourselves and even then, most of it still is just guessing if the means are actually good. Sometimes independent studying seems to be just an excuse for not having to teach everything the course brief tells we will learn.

More than a check-list to design sustainable architecture we encouraged students to broaden their conception of what matters in architecture and to analyse it through seven lenses and the constant evaluation, reflection, iteration and revision of our work. This firstly included the perspective of why sustainability matters (lens 1, see the students' video), people matters (2), the contextual environment (3), (passive) design decisions (4), material matters (5), holistic design (6) and the importance of 'feedback' in design (7).

At first, we studied these lenses separately and later interconnected with one another. During the course, we invited students to seek reliable information and make informed decisions based on evidence and motivate them to trust their observations and experiences of the environment around them as a source of knowledge. We asked them to view the world around them through these lenses, ground any new knowledge on their everyday life, and share their reflections with us and each other. Through thought-provoking lectures, readings and other material, and a diversity of activities (like small group study café's based around each lens), the course aspired to create a new narrative about sustainable architecture and remind us not only of what matters but also why it matters.

In doing so, we tried to represent a renewed understanding of the role of architects within society and a change of attitude towards our relationship with the planet, its living and inert organisms, and its resources - as well as towards the education of architecture. This renewed understanding and change in attitude were at the heart of the new course.

Going forward, the course is also a dynamic undertaking and it will change as discussions and realities shift under external and internal influences. When students in earlier years of education gain more knowledge in this area, we can also leap forward in the masters course. In 2020 the course was mostly taken by final year students in a 7 week period, but in 2022 it will return for 4 th year students over a 14 week period. Primesa Arapi, 2020 course alumnus, is one of several students in favour of this shift: "Ideally, I would prefer to have taken the course in the first year of my masters, which would give me a new pair of eyes to look at all the other courses to come." Primesa also found the study café essential and would liked to have been able to enroll on each one and even suggests opening it up to a wider body of students (including those outside architecture): " Reading, watching, learning, and working in diverse groups has opened the door for me to a broader perspective and has provided me with a starting point to get involved with the approach." Indeed, diversity brings different perspectives that helps us take leaps forward to achieve the needed change. As Pelsmakers and Newman write in 'Everything Needs to Change': " the same people that created, benefited from, and upheld the current extractive system are unlikely to be the ones to change it."
Diagrams by Primesa Arapi for the Sustainable Architecture course Making a difference, together
Primesa further reflects: " education plays a big part in developing (or not) the skillset and know-how of architecture students who are eager to learn a better way of working and need a trigger for opening their eyes to the bigger picture. The information we get out of the higher education, directs our interests in working life. Unfortunately, if we are not introduced to this through our studies, we are likely to be lost in the practical world of business and construction and obtain (their) generally accepted principles as righteous and important. In this manner, the Sustainable Architecture Course was one of the most important courses for the master's program of my choice, which addressed directly and concretely the sustainability field, providing material, working medium and guidelines. "

Architects around the world have come together to instigate change with individual and collective action. In Finland a local Architects Declare was established, there is the You Tell Me Collective of architecture students at Aalto University and at Tampere University we also just kicked off a Finnish sub-group of the UK's Architects Climate Action Network ( more resources coming later in March). Much needs to be done, because most architects or educators (and therefore by extension, students as future architects) do not yet have all the skills to change the current exploitative practices. In the past year, researchers in the ASUTUT Sustainable Housing Design research group have re-doubled their efforts to bring these issues to the foreground. We have realised that ' everything needs to change' indeed means everything about current housing production, how and what we teach and how we must practice architecture with greater inclusivity and empathy for a diversity of users and non-human species, as well as the public and a global responsibility to the planet.
In the meantime, join us to be the change that we need to be (more links will appear soon mapping e vents, resources, news, up-skilling courses and links to organisations.
Jieun also reflects how one course on its own is not enough: "I think that sustainable thinking should be part of every course. What this can do is helping students to think once more with a sustainable approach in every design stage in every school project, and to learn what is sustainability and what is a sustainable choice." We agree with this, and our ARCH4CHANGE project is a starting point and aims to create change in architectural education. The project received EU funding and, together with Taltech in Estonia, AAA in Denmark, UniBo in Italy and TUDublin in Ireland, we are creating an open access digital 'climate emergency' curriculum for (and with) each year of architectural studies, alongside a teacher training toolkit. We are only in the early stages (content will appear in 2022 and 2023) but you can find out more here.

[1] EC, (2019), New rules for greener and smarter buildings will increase quality of life for all Europeans, https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/new-rules-greener-and-smarter-buildings-will-increase-quality-life-all-europeans-2019-apr-15_en

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Everything needs to change | Arkkiblogi | Tampereen korkeakouluyhteisö

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Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUc2h8k0dYc Everything needs to change is the main title of a co-edited RIBA volume that Sofie Pelsmakers and Nick Newman (an ex-student of Sofie's and now a well-known architect-activist in the UK) guest edited in the past year, focusing on solutions to the current climatic, environmental and social challenges we face.

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Finnish embodied carbon database (FIN/SE/EN)

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Finnish embodied carbon database (FIN/SE/EN)

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Insulation and water proofing

Mineral materials and glass (excluding concrete)

Floorings and surface materials

HVAC products and electrical installations

Infra, yard, and foundations

CONSERVATIVE VALUE, GWP (A1-A3)

TYPICAL VALUE, GWP (A1-A3)

Not for building permit calculations

Energy scenario

Benefit allocation method

Values for building permit calculations, GWP

Energy scenario

Not for building permit calculations

Calculating yearly values

Values for building permit calculations, GWP

Values for years in between scenario years are to be calculated in linear fashion. If 2020 value= 0.153 and 2030 value=0.089
For example, a scenario value for a year 2024 can be calculated by taking value of year 2020 and adding to it one tenth of the difference of given values (2030 value - 2020 value) multiplied by number of years from the beginning of the given period (2024 - 2020 = 4)

Then 2024 value = 0.153 + (0.089-0.153)/10 *(2024-2020)=0.127

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Insulation and water proofing Mineral materials and glass (excluding concrete) Floorings and surface materials HVAC products and electrical installations Infra, yard, and foundations CONSERVATIVE VALUE, GWP (A1-A3) TYPICAL VALUE, GWP (A1-A3) Not for building permit calculations Energy scenario Benefit allocation method Values for building permit calculations, GWP Energy scenario Not for building permit calculations Calculating yearly values Values for building permit calculations, GWP Values for years in between scenario years are to be calculated in linear fashion.

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Eco-homes become hot property in UK's zero-carbon ‘paradigm shift’

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Eco-homes become hot property in UK's zero-carbon ‘paradigm shift’

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nstead of parking spaces, it's flowerbeds and vegetable planters that line the car-free street of Solar Avenue in Leeds, where rows of 60 low-energy homes form a little oasis along a bend in the River Aire, a short walk from the city centre.

Built in a factory across the road, these terrace houses are made from super-airtight timber panels stuffed full of wood-fibre insulation, with triple-glazed windows and solar panels on the roof, each erected in less than a week. Using up to 10 times less energy than a conventional house, their heating demand is so low that they create excess electricity that is fed into a community grid and used to charge shared electric cars. There will soon be 1,000 such homes here, along with a combined primary school and care home, as well as a timber office building with yoga decks and a tennis court on the roof, together forming the pioneering Climate Innovation District.

A few years ago these houses would have been experimental one-offs. But a green-design campaign group has calculated there are as many as 30,000 low-carbon homes in the pipeline, an impressive turnaround in which the industry is leading the way, ahead of government regulation.

"The way we build housing in the UK hasn't changed much since the Victorian era," says Chris Thompson, the founder of Citu, the developer behind the Leeds project, which plans to build 500 low-energy homes a year. "It's all driven by perceived risk. Anyone looking to build something has to answer to a funder, who'll use valuers to ensure that what you're proposing has a market."

Shifting the mindset of such a risk-averse industry can seem like an insurmountable challenge, not helped by the government dragging its heels on policy changes. But now, after scrapping Labour's zero-carbon homes target in 2015, the Conservative government has finally developed a future homes standard, which will mandate all new homes to be "zero-carbon-ready" - although not until 2025 at the earliest.

So it has been the landlords with a long-term interest in the wellbeing of their tenants, and the longevity of their building stock, who are forging ahead with low-energy housing. Exeter city council, for example, has been quietly building zero-carbon homes for the last decade, with more than 200 council houses built so far to the exacting Passivhaus low-energy standard, and 1,000 more in the pipeline.

"We were originally driven by trying to address fuel poverty," says Emma Osmundsen, director of the council's housing company, Exeter City Living. "Not many people were talking about climate change in 2009, when we built our first three Passivhaus homes, so we became a kind of accidental pioneer." The council is now on the seventh generation of its low-energy house design, which it has honed over the years to make it as "idiot-proof" as possible, says Osmundsen. Rather than timber frame, they use clay blocks that slot together like Lego bricks and contain a honeycomb of air pockets, negating the need for additional insulation. The homes are so thermally efficient that 60% of the tenants haven't had to switch on their heating at all - some for more than 12 years.

Like many in the industry, she thinks the biggest barrier to wider adoption of low-energy standards is the lack of care and attention to detail on British building sites. "Passivhaus is really not complicated, and it doesn't have to cost more than conventional construction," she says. "It's a bit like baking a cake: most of the ingredients are the same as a regular house, but you just have to follow the recipe in the right order. Perhaps it's because the building industry is so male-dominated, but there is a general reluctance to follow the recipe."

Many other councils are following Exeter's lead. Norwich completed the country's largest Passivhaus social housing scheme in 2019, winning the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize in the process, while York is planning an even more ambitious scheme by the same architects, Mikhail Riches. Cardiff University built an "energy positive" solar house in 2015, using low-cost, off-the-peg materials, with features that have since been replicated in more than 1,400 affordable and low-carbon houses across Wales. Oxford has started work on its first zero-carbon council homes, while Enfield council's huge £6bn Meridian Water development is also targeting net zero.

"It used to feel like we were ploughing a lone furrow," says Jon Bootland, the chief executive of the Passivhaus Trust, which was established over a decade ago to promote the low-energy standard, but for years was seen as the preserve of one-off eco-homes in the countryside. "Now our approach is really in the mainstream, as one of the few proven routes to net zero." The non-profit organisation, which trains designers and contractors and certifies buildings, has recorded a 60% increase in membership over the last year alone.

The environmental engineer Clara Bagenal George, the founder of the London Energy Transformation Initiative (Leti), has calculated that there are now about 30,000 homes at the masterplan stage that meet the Passivhaus target for a space heating demand of just 15 kWh/sq metre/year (compared with the current average of 54 kWh/sq metre/year), equating to a massive reduction in carbon. "It's an amazing story," she says. "The industry defined 'good', over and above the regulations, and within a year there are now tens of thousands of homes in the works that meet this standard. It shows we can do it."

And even the volume housebuilders are starting to get onboard. "It's almost paradigm shift territory," says Simon Usher, divisional director of Persimmon Homes, one of the largest developers in the country, which infamously paid its former chief executive a £75m bonus in 2018, while its homes were found to be riddled with construction defects. In 2019 the company admitted it had lobbied the government to axe its zero-carbon policy, but, in an effort to clean up its image, with a new chief executive at the helm, it is now working on a prototype zero-carbon house of its own near its headquarters in York.

"It's an unashamedly normal house," says Usher. "We wanted to see how far we could get with our standard masonry construction, building with our usual concrete bricks and tiles, but adding more insulation, beefing up the windows a bit, and adding an air-source heat pump in the garden. In the end, we got to zero carbon, for about 15% additional cost."

"People are willing to pay more for an electric car to do the right thing," says Usher. "Will they be willing to do the same for a zero-carbon home? The market will decide."

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Eco-homes become hot property in UK's zero-carbon 'paradigm shift'

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nstead of parking spaces, it's flowerbeds and vegetable planters that line the car-free street of Solar Avenue in Leeds, where rows of 60 low-energy homes form a little oasis along a bend in the River Aire, a short walk from the city centre.

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Ilmasto- ja energiapoliittinen ministerityöryhmä sai tiistaina katsauksen rakennusten ilmastoselvityksen asetusluonnoksesta. Asetus tukisi siirtymistä vähähiiliseen rakentamiseen ja mahdollistaisi hiilibudjettien säätämisen eri tyyppisille rakennuksille vuoteen 2025 mennessä.

Rakennusten ilmastoselvityksestä kävisivät ilmi rakennuksen haitalliset ja hyödylliset ilmastovaikutukset, eli hiilijalan- ja kädenjälki, joiden arviointi perustuu yhteiseurooppalaisiin standardeihin ja kattaa koko rakennuksen elinkaaren. Laskentaa varten on kehitetty kansallinen päästötietokanta, joka julkaistiin avoimeen koekäyttöön 1.3.2021 samaan aikaan Suomessa ja Ruotsissa. Ilmastoselvitys tulisi jatkossa esittää rakennusluvan hakemisen yhteydessä. Asetus sisältyy uudistettavaan maankäyttö- ja rakennuslakiin, joka lähetetään lausunnoille kevään aikana.

"Teemme nyt maailmankin mittakaavassa uraauurtavaa työtä, jolla luodaan edellytykset ilmaston kannalta kestävälle tulevaisuuden rakentamiselle", toteaa ilmasto- ja energiapoliittisen ministerityöryhmän puheenjohtaja, ympäristö- ja ilmastoministeri Krista Mikkonen.

Ministerityöryhmä keskusteli myös siitä, miten julkisen sektorin ympäristöystävällisiä ajoneuvohankintoja koskevaa lakiluonnosta muokataan lausuntokierroksen palautteen perusteella. Uuden lain tarkoituksena on lisätä vähä- ja nollapäästöisten ajoneuvojen osuutta julkisen sektorin hankinnoissa, joita ovat esimerkiksi koulukuljetukset, jätteiden keruu, paikallisliikenteen bussipalvelut ja Kelan kuljetukset. Lailla pannaan täytäntöön EU:n puhtaita julkisia ajoneuvohankintoja koskevan direktiivin vaatimukset, joita tulee soveltaa 2. elokuuta 2021 alkaen. Hallituksen esitys lähetetään seuraavaksi lainsäädännön arviointineuvostolle, joka antaa lausunnon lakiluonnoksesta.

Ministerityöryhmä sai tiedoksi Suomen ensimmäisen ICT-alan ilmasto- ja ympäristöstrategian. Suomessa on tehty uraauurtavaa työtä ICT-alan ilmasto- ja ympäristöasioiden kokonaisvaltaisessa tarkastelussa, ja strategia on kansainvälisestikin ainutlaatuinen. Sen mukaan Suomi tähtää tieto- ja viestintäteknologian osaamisella ilmasto-ongelmien ratkaisijaksi. Liikenne- ja viestintäministeriö julkaisee strategian 9. maaliskuuta 2021.

Lisäksi ministerit kuulivat edellisen ilmastopolitiikan pyöreän pöydän viestejä toimialojen vähähiilitiekartoista ja valmistautuivat hallituksen puoliväliriiheen huhtikuussa.

Lisätietoja

Riikka Yliluoma
Ympäristö- ja ilmastoministerin erityisavustaja
p. 050 414 1682
[email protected]

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Ilmasto- ja energiapoliittinen ministerityöryhmä sai tiistaina katsauksen rakennusten ilmastoselvityksen asetusluonnoksesta. Asetus tukisi siirtymistä vähähiiliseen rakentamiseen ja mahdollistaisi hiilibudjettien säätämisen eri tyyppisille rakennuksille vuoteen 2025 mennessä. Rakennusten ilmastoselvityksestä kävisivät ilmi rakennuksen haitalliset ja hyödylliset ilmastovaikutukset, eli hiilijalan- ja kädenjälki, joiden arviointi perustuu yhteiseurooppalaisiin standardeihin ja kattaa koko rakennuksen elinkaaren.

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Architects call on German parliament to initiate true transition in buildings sector

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Architects call on German parliament to initiate true transition in buildings sector

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Architects call on German parliament to initiate true transition in buildings sector

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The Clean Energy Wire produces and enables first-class journalism about the energy transition in Germany and beyond.

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Structural engineers declare climate and biodiversity emergency

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Structural engineers declare climate and biodiversity emergency

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Structural Engineers Declare - The Institution of Structural Engineers

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An open letter from Martin Powell, Chief Executive.

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The first assessment of countries' pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, a vital component of the Paris climate agreement, has found they are only a fraction of the effort needed to avoid climate breakdown.

If all of the national pledges submitted so far were fulfilled, global emissions would be reduced by only 1% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. Scientists have said a 45% reduction is needed in the next 10 years to keep global heating to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris agreement.

Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said: "We are very far away from a pathway that will meet the Paris agreement goal. We are collectively walking into a minefield blindfolded. The next step could be disaster."

The assessment, published by the UN on Friday, covers countries responsible for only about a third of global emissions. Only 75 of the 197 signatories to the Paris accord submitted their national action plans for reducing emissions between now and 2030 - known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - in time to be assessed.

Some of the world's biggest emitters, including China, the US and India, have still to formulate NDCs. They face renewed pressure to do so urgently. The UN has said that without them, the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November will fail.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: "2021 is a make-or-break year to confront the global climate emergency. Today's interim report is a red alert for our planet. It shows governments are nowhere close to the level of ambition needed to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. The major emitters must step up with much more ambitious reduction targets for 2030 in their NDCs well before the November conference in Glasgow."

Many of the countries still to produce NDCs, including China and the US, have stated their intention to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, seen as a key commitment to fulfil the Paris agreement. Guterres, however, said 2030 targets were also crucial: " Covid-19 recovery plans offer the opportunity to build back greener and cleaner. Long-term commitments must be matched by immediate actions to launch the decade of transformation that people and planet so desperately need."

The US and China will now be firmly under the spotlight. China could publish its NDC as soon as next week, when the government is expected to unveil its next five-year plan. The US is holding a major international climate summit on 22 April, at which it could come forward with plans.

The two biggest emitters are involved in a diplomatic balancing act, echoing that before the Paris agreement, when presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping held their own summit before the talks in the French capital to forge a common understanding.

Helen Mountford, the vice-president of the World Resources Institute, called for stringent plans from both. "The US should set an ambitious and attainable 2030 emission reduction target of 50%, while China should peak its emissions by 2025, which our research shows is possible, as well as rein in its non-CO2 emissions" such as methane and industrial gases.

Aubrey Webson, the ambassador to the UN for Antigua and Barbuda and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, many of which face inundation if temperatures rise by more than 1.5C, said: "The US recently rejoined the Paris agreement and the world applauded. Now we need them to continue to showcase real climate leadership.

"Other large emitters that have not yet made pledges must do so immediately. If we are truly determined to limit global warming to well below 1.5C, these emitters must do better. They must go further. And they must implement their climate targets faster."

Espinosa also made it clear that the countries that had already submitted their pledges had not done enough. She refused to single any out, and the assessment - entitled the Initial NDC Synthesis Report - shows aggregate data. She said: "It is incredible to think that just when nations are facing an emergency that could eventually end human life on this planet, many are sticking to their business-as-usual approach."

Japan submitted its NDC early last year, but since then the country's new government and regional rivals China and South Korea have committed to net-zero targets, which could prompt a rethink. Australia and Brazil also submitted NDCs widely regarded as inadequate. EU member states agreed a target of 55% emissions cuts by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, though MEPs wanted to go further.

The UK, which will host Cop26, claimed its target of 68% emissions reductions by 2030 was the toughest of any developed country, but some economists calculated a target of 70% or more was feasible.

Carolina Schmidt, Chile's environment minister who hosted the last Cop talks in 2019, said that of the major economies only the EU and UK had pledged enough. "With respect to the world's biggest emitters, whose contributions are most decisive, only two followed Chile's footsteps by presenting NDCs with a strong increase in greenhouse gas reduction targets last year," she said.

"These were the EU and UK, whose efforts we commend. The remainder have either failed to present new NDCs or presented NDCs with no increase in ambition. They must all now step up if we are to keep the hopes of Paris alive, even if this means resubmitting an NDC to ensure it is fit for that task."

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CO2 emissions: nations' pledges 'far away' from Paris target, says UN

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The first assessment of countries' pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, a vital component of the Paris climate agreement, has found they are only a fraction of the effort needed to avoid climate breakdown.

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All planned coal projects around the world must be cancelled to end the "deadly addiction" to the most polluting fossil fuel, the UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Tuesday.

Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to tackle the climate crisis, he said. Guterres's call came at the opening of a summit of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a group of governments and businesses committed to ending coal burning for power.

The PPCA was founded by the UK and Canada in 2017. The UK is on track to end coal burning in power plants in 2024, but it has come under recent pressure for allowing a new coalmine to go ahead in Cumbria, which will produce coking coal for use in steel making. The UK is hosting a vital UN climate summit, Cop26, in November.

The PPCA announced two new national members, Hungary and Uruguay. PPCA members commit to ending coal burning for power by 2030 in developed nations and reducing it by 80% globally.

"Today, I am calling on all governments, private companies and local authorities to take three steps," said Guterres. "First, cancel all global coal projects in the pipeline and end the deadly addiction to coal. Second, end the international financing of coal plants and ... third, jump-start a global effort to finally organise a just transition [for coal industry workers], going plant by plant if necessary."

UK energy minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan told the PPCA summit: "Having gone over 5,000 hours without using coal for electricity last year, the UK is powering forward with the transition away from coal for power generation and into the enormous economic potential of clean technologies." She did not mention the Cumbria mine.

Canada's environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson said: "By working together we are creating a healthier future for our children and grandchildren." However, critics point out there are plans for new coal mines in Alberta.

Doug Parr, at Greenpeace UK, said: "The UK is supposed to be leading this alliance, but far from Powering Past Coal - we're scaling back up. Unless plans for the new mine are immediately scrapped, Boris Johnson will have damaged the credibility and moral authority needed to demand action from world leaders as host of this year's global climate conference."

One of the UK's most eminent environmental scientists recently called the government's failure to block the new coalmine in Cumbria " absolutely ridiculous". The government's official climate advisers said the mine gave a " negative impression of the UK's climate priorities ".

Supporters of the £165m mine say it would provide 500 jobs in an area which is among the most deprived in the country. Ministers have said the matter is a "local issue".

The mine would produce 2.7m tonnes a year of coking coal, with about 85% planned for export, although there is no shortage of such coal globally. A recent report suggested the sulphur content of the Cumbrian coal could mean British steelmakers would be unable to use it. Green experts say steelmakers will have to deploy new technology to reduce their emissions under the UK's net zero targets.

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Cancel all planned coal projects globally to end 'deadly addiction', says UN chief

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All planned coal projects around the world must be cancelled to end the "deadly addiction" to the most polluting fossil fuel, the UN secretary-general António Guterres said on Tuesday. Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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China is to publish a new blueprint for its economy on Friday, with vast implications for the future of the planet - including whether the goals of the Paris climate agreement are likely to be met.

The five-year plan, of which this will be the 14th since 1953, forms the cornerstone of economic governance for the one-party state, and sets out social and environmental aspirations as well as GDP and industrial targets.

China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, as well as the second biggest economy after the US. Global carbon emissions must halve by the end of this decade to have a chance of holding global heating well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris accord, so China's role will be decisive.

Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, told the Guardian: "The investments of this decade, particularly in infrastructure, will determine whether we have any chance of keeping to the Paris targets. China will be a focal point for economic growth in this crucial decade ... [the plan] is of absolutely central importance to the world's future."

Net zero emissions springs from the Paris agreement, though the goal was not made explicit in the treaty's text. World leaders set the 2C limit, and the aspirational limit of 1.5C, at Paris based on advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading body of the world's climate scientists, which has over years worked out that 2C was the threshold of safety, beyond which the ravages of climate breakdown were likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. Even at 1.5C, many low-lying areas could flood from sea level rises and storm surges.

After Paris, the IPCC was asked to advise further on the emissions cuts needed to stay within those limits. Building on its previous findings, the world's climate science authority established in 2018 that emissions would have to reach zero around mid-century, and that this could be achieved if emissions were halved in the next decade or so.

That clear scientific backing helped to establish net zero emissions by 2050 as the standard that must be achieved.

Net zero emissions means reducing emissions as far as possible, and balancing out whatever remains by increasing carbon sinks, for instance by growing trees or restoring wetlands and peatlands. Phasing out coal, switching to renewable energy, the more efficient use of energy, and moving to electrified transport will all be key. Nuclear power may also play a role, and some countries such as China and France are investing in a new generation of reactors. Carbon capture and storage technology, by which carbon dioxide from large sources as gas-fired power plants or industrial units is captured at source, liquefied and piped into large underground chambers, such as depleted oilfields, is also likely to be needed, in varying amounts according to different analyses.

Some scientists believe we also need to start to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air. One method of doing this involves crushing up limestone rocks to spread chalk dust on fields. The limestone absorbs carbon, and the dust improves the soil.

Xi Jinping, the president of China, surprised the world in September when at the UN general assembly, held virtually for the first time, he announced that the country would seek to cut its emissions to net zero by 2060.

That target is in line with scientific advice - the whole world must reach net zero emissions around mid-century to stay within 2C - but politically it was seismic. China's previous position at climate talks was that the developed countries of the west, with their long history of industrialisation, must take on tough obligations to cut their emissions first, while emerging economies, such as China, India and Brazil, could continue to increase theirs.

If China's net zero target is met, along with those of other countries - the US, the EU, the UK, Japan, South Korea and many smaller countries also plan to reach net zero by 2050 - then the world has a good chance of keeping to 2C, according to Climate Action Tracker.

But though China's net zero target is essential, it is four decades away. What happens now is crucial, because carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere today will still be there, overheating the planet, in a century. That means countries must stop adding to the stock of carbon in the air as soon as possible, and stop building high-carbon infrastructure such as coal-fired power plants that will have an operating life of decades.

"To achieve the Paris targets, emissions must turn down in the next couple of years," said Stern. "Realistically, that cannot happen unless emissions in China start to fall."

Xi said in September that China's emissions would peak before 2030. Most experts regard that as too late to have a realistic chance of meeting the Paris goals, however, and allowing emissions to carry on rising for a decade would encourage the continued building of fossil fuel infrastructure. They want to see China set a tougher target, and many regard a peak date of 2025 as within China's power to achieve.

Laurence Tubiana, the chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, and the French diplomat who led the Paris negotiations, said: "[Peaking in] 2025 seems possible, all the modelling by Chinese teams points to that, and it's not too late. But 2030 or around 2030 would be too late, there is no ambiguity about that."

The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic may make an early peak harder to achieve, however. China's emissions dropped suddenly last year, as lockdowns took hold, then swiftly climbed again as restrictions eased. In its efforts to restart the economy after the Covid-19 shock, China turned to an old standby: the country brought forward stalled investments in coal-fired power plants. China approved more new coal-fired power generation in the first half of last year than in the whole of the previous two years, according to Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Bernice Lee, a research director for futures at the Chatham House thinktank, said the rest of the world must understand that China's dependence on coal for energy, industry and millions of jobs runs deep, and try to find ways of engaging rather than admonishing China.

"People always ask why can't China move faster away from coal. It is hard in China, like it is hard in many other places: it is about real people on the ground, industries, powerful lobbies, bureaucratic fights, and inertia," she said. "But a better question for us to ask ourselves is: what can the rest of the world do to encourage China - and others, like India - to move faster away from coal?"

The question of China's peak year for emissions is unlikely to be resolved in Friday's five-year plan. Instead, the government is likely to set out its economic blueprint, including targets for GDP growth, and gesture towards environmental, social and climate aims without setting them out in detail.

However, Beijing faces another deadline. This November, world governments will meet in Glasgow for vital UN climate talks, called Cop26. Under the Paris agreement, countries were supposed to set out in 2020 fresh commitments on cutting or curbing greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030. That timetable slipped because of the Covid-19 pandemic but the UN has made it clear it wants new national plans for 2030 - called nationally determined contributions, or NDCs - from all major countries before Cop26.

The EU, the UK, Japan and about 70 others have set out their NDCs, though some are under pressure to revise them. All eyes are now on the US and China, as the world's biggest emitters and biggest economies. Joe Biden, the US president, has called a summit of world leaders for 22 April to discuss climate action before Cop26, and he is expected there to set out his country's NDC.

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China's five-year plan for economy is crucial to meeting net zero by 2060

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China is to publish a new blueprint for its economy on Friday, with vast implications for the future of the planet - including whether the goals of the Paris climate agreement are likely to be met.

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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Climate Sustainable living

With urban ski sharing, Finland's purest waters and a plan to be carbon neutral by 2025, this little-known city more than deserves its year in the spotlight, finds Tim Bird

Saturday 27 February 2021 12:27

I

n addition to being the happiest nation in the world, inventing the sauna and having a penchant for heavy metal music, Finns are known for their all-round no-nonsense pragmatism. Lahti, an hour's drive north from the capital Helsinki in southern Finland, confirms this reputation by virtue of its name, simply meaning "Bay". It's in reference to its location, snuggling on the shore of one of Finland's many enormous lakes, which is called - with similar descriptive economy - Vesijarvi, or "Water Lake".

In spite of its scenic location, Lahti might not be on the must-visit list for many leisure visitors to Finland, where the prime draws tend to be Helsinki, the Lakeland bordering Russia to the east, and Lapland, with its Northern Lights and Christmas themes. But Lahti, population 120,000 and capital of the Paijat-Hame province, is asserting itself as a travel destination, not least on the basis of its status as 2021 Green Capital of Europe.

Lahti is the 12th city to be awarded this honour, joining a list that includes the likes of Bristol, Hamburg, Lisbon and Copenhagen. Cities with a minimum population of 100,000 can apply for the award, overseen by the European Commission in recognition of a variety of environmental factors, from transport and biodiversity to eco-innovation and air quality.

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The idea is not just to provide an annual showcase, casting a temporary spotlight on individual communities, but to acknowledge a record of environmental achievements, to recognise ambitions for sustainable development, and to promote European urban role models for best environmental practices. And having green credentials could just be the thing that gives cities the edge when it comes to future tourism.

"In the future, our selling points will be our natural environment and health benefits of being close to nature," says Milla Bruneau, director of the Green Lahti programme. "Being able to swim in a clean lake, to eat fresh fish caught in local waters and to eat and drink other local products - these are the things that people will want to visit Lahti for. For younger people it's going to be an even more important issue. If you're not on top in terms of sustainability, people will go somewhere else."

None of these elements are exclusive to Lahti, in a country where lakes and forests are abundant and bound to be even more attractive to post-Covid tourists looking for safe room to roam. Lahti, however, can justifiably claim to be ahead of the sustainability game. The city has pledged to cross the carbon neutrality finish line by 2025, 10 years before the national target. Up to 99 per cent of household waste is recycled, with advanced waste separation practices well established in households and businesses. The hospitality sector is also onboard, as exemplified by the Green Key-labelled Sokos Hotel Lahden Seurahuone, whose rooms have hosted presidents and royalty.

Meanwhile, Finland's purest water flows through the natural sand and gravel filters that form the city backdrop of the Salpausselka ridge, an Ice Age relic, feeding Lake Vesijarvi. This water also feeds the Hartwall brewery, one of Finland's biggest, and the award-winning whisky and ales of the Teerenpeli distillery and craft brewery.

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If you're not on top in terms of sustainability, people will go somewhere else

Clean water is one of the central themes, as well as an intended legacy of the Green Capital programme, along with carbon neutrality, a waste-free circular economy and a green urban environment. Vesijarvi's plentiful fish, with succulent white pike-perch (zander) a speciality, are prominent at Lahti's many restaurants, the "slow-food" menus of which also feature game, berries and mushrooms, as well as breads baked from local oats and rye. Recommended restaurants include Restaurant Roux in a converted 19th-century pharmacy, specialising in Finnish and Nordic cuisine, and the Taivaanranta Grill and Distillery, also with a Finnish-themed menu.

Proximity to nature is a constant reference point in the Green Capital project, but also in everyday Lahti life. The pine forests and steep slopes of Salpausselka ridge lend themselves to summer hikes and winter sports, and towering ski jumps are among Lahti's landmarks. City attractions include a sports museum, celebrating the heritage of annual cross country ski and ski jump events. A novel urban ski-sharing scheme, the first in the world, is the winter equivalent to the bike share available in snow-free months, and an imaginative step towards encouraging carbon neutral transport.

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Elsewhere, those forests are the inspiration for much Finnish art, design and culture, all three of which converge in the Sibelius Hall - an elegant symphony in timber named after the nation's most loved and famous composer - that graces the waterfront. Events planned here and in other venues for the Green Capital scheme are now scheduled for the second half of the year, when it's hoped that travel restrictions to Finland will be relaxed.

The optimism of Bruneau, a local "Lahtelainen" herself, is undiminished by Covid-enforced challenges, and she enthuses about how the city's existing attractions already form the foundation for the Green City initiative. "We are in a transition to a more sustainable future," she says. "I can see this programme generating an interest in other cities, in travel and in business, and I believe this year will be an exhilarating time for us."

1/3 How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

Lahti is green in more ways than one

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How Lahti earned its place as the Green Capital of Europe

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Climate Sustainable living With urban ski sharing, Finland's purest waters and a plan to be carbon neutral by 2025, this little-known city more than deserves its year in the spotlight, finds Tim Bird Saturday 27 February 2021 12:27 I n addition to being the happiest nation in the world, inventing the sauna and having a penchant for heavy metal music, Finns are known for their all-round no-nonsense pragmatism.

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Fiercer, more frequent fires may reduce carbon capture by forests

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Fiercer, more frequent fires may reduce carbon capture by forests

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More fierce and frequent fires are reducing forest density and tree size and may damage forests' ability to capture carbon in the future, according to a global study.

Although forest fires are naturally occurring phenomena and natural forests regenerate, global heating and human activity have caused the frequency and intensity of fires to rise. Wildfires burn 5% of the planet's surface every year, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere equivalent to a fifth of our annual fossil fuel emissions.

Researchers analysing decades of data from 29 regions in Africa, Australia, North America and South America have found that sites that had fires every year had 63% fewer individual trees and 72% less basal area - a measurement which reveals the trees are much smaller - than places that never burned. Landscapes with fewer, smaller trees are likely to sequester less carbon.

There is growing interest in planting trees as a natural climate solution, with the Trillion Trees campaign attracting the support of the global politicians and business leaders and even the enthusiastic backing of Donald Trump in the final year of his US presidency.

But researchers warned that afforestation efforts to sequester carbon would have to choose planting locations carefully and take heed of changes to fire frequency, with regular blazes changing the species within wooded areas as well as tree size.

"Planting trees in areas where trees grow rapidly is widely promoted as a way to mitigate climate change. But to be sustainable, plans must consider the possibility of changes in fire frequency and intensity over the longer term," said Dr Adam Pellegrini of the University of Cambridge, who is first author of the paper.

"If you plant trees that are not adapted for fire, those forests may sequester carbon for 20 or 30 years but you have to ask yourself how stable is that carbon?"

The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, found that savannah ecosystems and tropical regions with more extreme wet and dry seasons were the most sensitive to changes in fire frequency. In tropical areas, grass grows more vigorously in the wet season before drying out and burning more intensely in the dry season, with hotter and more frequent fires hindering the ability of some trees to recover from the fire.

"Our study shows that although wetter regions are better for tree growth, they're also more vulnerable to fire," said Pellegrini. "That will influence the areas we should manage to try and mitigate climate change."

The tropics is the favoured area for climate-motivated afforestation because fast-growing, dense natural tropical forests sequester more carbon than temperate woodlands.

Previous studies have shown how frequent fires reduce the levels of nutrients such as nitrogen in the soil. The new research shows that this can favour slower-growing tree species that can thrive with fewer nutrients. But these trees may limit the recovery of the wider forest by retaining nutrients rather than moving them into the soil where they can be used by other species.

"As fire frequency and intensity increases because of climate change, the structure and functioning of forest ecosystems are going to change in so many ways because of changes in tree composition," said Pellegrini. "More fire-tolerant tree species are generally slower growing, reducing the productivity of the forest."

In the past, the majority of carbon released by wildfires was recaptured, as ecosystems regenerated, but more frequent or intense fires do not allow for such natural recovery.

Fire cycles are a positive and necessary part of some landscapes, however, ensuring a diversity of plants and animals. If fires are suppressed by people in savannah systems, the species-rich grassland can be rapidly covered by a less diverse treescape.

The research effort, a collaboration with the managers of 374 forest plots across four continents where experimental burning was carried out or prevented, will next examine the impact of fires and their frequency on biodiversity.

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Fiercer, more frequent fires may reduce carbon capture by forests

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More fierce and frequent fires are reducing forest density and tree size and may damage forests' ability to capture carbon in the future, according to a global study. Although forest fires are naturally occurring phenomena and natural forests regenerate, global heating and human activity have caused the frequency and intensity of fires to rise.

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Changes in Atlantic currents may have dire climate implications for the next century

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Changes in Atlantic currents may have dire climate implications for the next century

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and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/25/atlantic-ocean-circulation-at-weakest-in-a-millennium-say-scientists?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

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he ocean circulation that keeps our relatively northern corner of Europe warm(ish) is often likened to a gigantic conveyor belt bringing warm equatorial water northwards at the surface, balanced by cold southward flow at great depth. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short, brings heat energy northward at the equivalent rate of 10 Hiroshima bombs every second and keeps our weather mild, and just a little bit too damp, and is critical to the wider climate.

New research has provided important long-term context for scientists' observations of these Atlantic currents that bring warmth and climatic stability to our shores, with concerning implications for the coming century. Changes in the AMOC in the geologic past have caused significant local and global impacts, and for several decades now oceanographers have been monitoring its strength.

Computer modelling and theory predict a steady reduction in the strength of the AMOC and its heat-delivery service in response to human-induced changes in rainfall, river runoff and the melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet. Additionally, they show that the AMOC is one of the global climate " tipping points". If reduced beyond a certain, currently uncertain, limit it may collapse suddenly, with huge implications for our lives. Our best observational estimates, based on oceanographic data back to 1871, show that there has already been an approximate 15% reduction in AMOC strength.

What is missing, though, is longer-term context: is the present decline part of a long natural cycle, or is it due to human influence?

Research published in the journal Nature Geoscience this week has provided this context. Authors from Ireland, Germany and the UK have shown that the AMOC is the weakest it has been at any point in more than 1,000 years. They have done this using a combination of 11 different "proxy measurements" that indirectly infer the AMOC strength. These proxies include marine sediment composition, tree rings, ice-core chemistry and other exotic measurements that make up the bread and butter of the niche-within-a-niche field of paleoceanography.

On their own, any single such record should be interpreted with caution, but nine of these 11 proxies show a reduction in the AMOC strength since the late 1800s, with an even greater weakening since the 1960s. Importantly, they also show that prior to about 1850, the approximate start of human industrial influence, the AMOC strength was relatively steady right back to before 400 AD.

This provides critical observational evidence linking human influence to the decline in the AMOC strength, backing up what climate models have been showing for decades. These same models also predict that under current emission rates the AMOC may be reduced to less than half its original strength by the year 2100. There is still a great deal of uncertainty here, but the message is a robust one: continued greenhouse gas emissions will drive the AMOC lower and lower. Fortunately, the recent Special Report on the Oceans and Cryosphere from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that we were still "very unlikely" to encounter the tipping point in the present century, but this does not mean there aren't consequences in the nearer term.

A reduced AMOC is projected to bring colder weather overall to the UK and northern Europe, with much more intense winters and storms off the Atlantic, as well as reduced summer rainfall and crop productivity and a greater likelihood of extreme weather events such as the 2015 European summer heatwave. The impacts are not limited to this side of the Atlantic either. Increased sea levels are predicted on the US eastern seaboard, with the associated increased risks of flooding and potentially increased hurricane intensities.

Such large changes in ocean circulation also put the ecosystems and aquaculture we depend upon at risk. Marine deoxygenation and changes in key species abundances have been linked to an AMOC slowdown, along with an overall reduction in North Atlantic ocean productivity.

The far southern end of the AMOC around Antarctica is also of concern. The global ocean as a whole has absorbed more than 90% of human induced warming, absolutely dwarfing the changes in air temperature that we are all so concerned with. The vast ocean ringing Antarctica is where most of this extra heat (and carbon dioxide) has been injected into the deep ocean, and it is warming and acidifying at an alarming rate. One of the main areas of research for oceanographers such as myself is whether the ocean will continue to essentially sweep human impacts under the carpet - and what may happen if that stops.

This should not be a cause for despair and inaction though. The same models that predict the AMOC slowdown also show that strong emission reductions now can drive an AMOC recovery towards the end of the century. Research may reduce uncertainties, but the message is clear: strong climate action at governmental and industrial levels is needed now, and it is the job of the people to force such action with their wallets and votes.

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Changes in Atlantic currents may have dire climate implications for the next century | Andrew Meijers

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he ocean circulation that keeps our relatively northern corner of Europe warm(ish) is often likened to a gigantic conveyor belt bringing warm equatorial water northwards at the surface, balanced by cold southward flow at great depth.

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First-ever compendium of indigenous technologies provides a powerful toolkit for climate-resilient design

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First-ever compendium of indigenous technologies provides a powerful toolkit for climate-resilient design

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The design field is at an inflection point. It must challenge its repertoire, rethink technology, and begin to see biodiversity as a building block of urban environments. Julia Watson's lush and meticulous new book, Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, provides a blueprint for sustainable architecture in the 21st century. For designers of the built environment, it is a first-ever compendium of overlooked design technologies from indigenous groups around the world. For the intrepid traveler or curious citizen, it is an invitation to know millennia-old societies thriving in symbiosis with nature thanks to local ingenuity, creativity, spirituality, and resourcefulness. For the indigenous groups represented, it is a source of satisfaction from seeing contemporary design scholarship catch up with their time-tested practices.

And for Watson, the book is a means to name, document, and create a toolkit for a design movement. "Lo-TEK," is built on "lesser known technologies, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and indigenous cultural practices and mythologies," as she writes in the book's introduction. It explores the space where design and "radical indigenism" meet. Conceived of by Princeton professor and Cherokee Nation member Eva Marie Goutte, radical indigenism encourages us to look to indigenous philosophies to rebuild our knowledge base and generate new dialogues across genres. Watson is advocating a movement that merges these beliefs with design to yield sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructures.

"I realized that all of these high-tech, repackaged, nature-based, eco-technologies come from a long lineage of indigenous technologies and knowledge. We can look to cultures that have been living with natural systems and understanding how to develop civilizations with complex ecosystems as a grounding for moving forward as designers," Watson explains. "It's a movement toward rethinking how urbanism interacts with nature."

Lo-TEK investigates that movement through its evidence base: more than 100 indigenous innovations from 20 countries. They are divided by ecosystem-mountains, forests, deserts, and wetlands-which underscores the link between the technologies and the environments and communities that gave birth to them. The Tofinu people of Benin's wetlands built a city on stilts surrounded by 12,000 man-made aquaculture pens. The acadja, as the paddocks are called, house fish and wildlife that rival commercial aquaculture systems in scale and productivity but with better environmental benefits and none of the drawbacks.

We're stuck in a paradigm of thinking conservation is this passive, fringe condition. It's becoming apparent, however, that conservation landscapes and the management and adaptation of those landscapes are critical to survival.

Julia WatsonOn the responsibility of designers to integrate and recontextualize indigenous technologies

Lo-TEK's arresting cover features the living root bridges and ladders of the Khasi hill tribe of northern India, one of the world's more innovative examples of vernacular architecture. In a practice dating to 100 BCE, the Khasi train rubber fig trees to grow into bridges and ladders that allow them to navigate steep ravines and flooded river crossings during the monsoon season. Each bridge takes one generation to build, and they have proven to be the only structures that can withstand the unforgiving monsoon rains.

The book is itself a design feat. Co-art directed by Watson and W-E studio, its Swiss brochure binding exposes the spine and the book's "construction and materiality." The detached cover also allows readers to map each technology to an altitude guide printed on its inside. Diagrams and illustrations are rendered simply to make the complex systems they depict easier to grasp. The aesthetic coherence between the many photographs belie sourcing from 100 different photographers. And gold foiling plays up the contradiction between the true value of indigenous technologies and the fact that they are "incredibly undervalued because they're not even recognized as technology," says Watson.

This is another central message of the book: that the design world must upend the prevailing paradigm that has revered "hard" (single-use) infrastructures, high-tech, and homogenous design, and the domination of nature while trivializing "soft" (multi-use) systems, local wisdom, vernacular architecture, and coexisting with nature. Identifying this hierarchy of beliefs as colonial and racist and labeling indigenous practices as technology are examples of Watson's efforts at this disruption in Lo-TEK. "The book is trying to break all the tropes of what we understand about indigenous people and say that what we think of as primitive is actually innovative," explains Watson.

Watson is Australian, but long before the wildfires began tearing through her country, she was deeply concerned about climate change and committed to design-based responses that involve radical indigenism. The climate crisis has made it imperative, not only because many indigenous innovations are inherently sustainable but also because standard architectural approaches have exacerbated climate change. "We are looking for high tech solutions to deal with a problem that was created through this fascination with high tech and industrialization," Watson says.

Lo-TEK proposes an alternative way forward, with Watson and her fellow practitioners in the charge. "It's up to designers now that they have this toolkit that extends our understanding of technologies that can be integrated and recontextualized in urban or peri-urban projects. We're stuck in a paradigm of thinking conservation is this passive, fringe condition. It's becoming apparent, however, that conservation landscapes and the management and adaptation of those landscapes are critical to survival. When you see forests being burnt at scale in Australia, you understand that these landscapes are interdependent with our cities. They impact our air quality, our survival. It's a critical time for critical considerations for designers."

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First-ever compendium of indigenous technologies provides a powerful toolkit for climate-resilient design - Harvard Graduate School of Design

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The design field is at an inflection point. It must challenge its repertoire, rethink technology, and begin to see biodiversity as a building block of urban environments. Julia Watson's lush and meticulous new book, Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, provides a blueprint for sustainable architecture in the 21st century.