Climate Change Global Digest Autumn 2019

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

On 1 May the UK government became the first in the world to declare a climate change emergency. This marks a pivotal moment and decisions over the coming months will indicate just how seriously the government takes this decision.

In advance of this national declaration, many local authorities and local councils have been declaring their own emergencies and committing themselves to action on climate change.

In the private sector, a large number of design practices have also declared a climate and biodiversity emergency and have committed to a significant set of actions.

Embedded within these declarations are some major commitments for us as urban designers to respond to. They include advocating for faster change and action, and evaluating every project against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown. There is also a commitment to share knowledge and research on an open source basis as part of a collective effort to bring about real change.

We at URBAN DESIGN, commit to do our bit to promote and share research and solutions. We are therefore introducing a new feature in the next issue of the magazine. It will be a global digest of the latest and most useful research on climate change mitigation and adaptation. We have assembled a group of climate change experts who will filter through the raft of work happening across the globe, to bring you the most relevant information for urban designers. We will include a short summary of the most relevant findings and we hope it will be a real help in supporting your everyday work.