COP21 must act as catalyst for construction industry

The success of the Paris Climate Change agreement must be tempered by a realisation of how difficult it will be to achieve.
For the construction sector in particular it provides a challenge which will be hard for some countries to overcome. At present the construction industry is responsible for more than 30% of the world greenhouse gas emissions. As the delegates at the climate change conference fly back to their home nations on private airplanes it will fall to the construction industry to ensure that they can meet the target of below two degrees for global warming.
Recent statistics have given rise to the prediction that the global population could be nearing 10 billion by 2050, about the same time that global greenhouse gas is expected to rise by 70%. With such a dramatic increase in population comes and equally dramatic need for construction. 10 billion people need homes to live in, hospitals to be born and treated in, schools to be educated in, factories and offices to work in, shops to buy goods in, roads to travel along and on and on. The construction industry is set for a period of growth, even taking into account that the majority of those born between now and 2050 will be in developing countries without necessarily having access to all of the facilities which would be hoped.
If the global construction industry is going to meet the needs of these dual issues then it is going to need to start adapting to new technologies and embracing some existing ones.
The construction of Passivhaus builds for example could become the norm as an increasing number of architects and contractors see them to being the solution to meet the current climate change targets. “With innovative new technologies and expected cost reductions, climate-damaging emissions can be further cut, leading to an eventual complete decarbonisation of the sector”, Oliver Rapf, Executive Director of the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) writes on the subject in a publication for the think tank Friends of Europe.
The principles behind Passivhaus design are quite simple, and play nicely to the principles set out in the Paris Climate Change Agreement, Carbon Dioxide emissions are reduced as the energy consumption of these build is limited by their heat retention capability. Likewise in hot weather the buildings ability to maintain a constant temperature internally through its design prevents the need for air conditioning or other energy intensive measures. Even with a new focus on renewable energy the increased efficiency of Passivhaus builds is likely to be an area of growth in the future, after all preventing the need for the energy consumption is preferable to needing even green energy sources.
"Renewable energy is absolutely essential for climate protection, but better efficiency offers even greater potential", says Dr. Wolfgang Feist, Director of the Passive House Institute.
Forty-five years from now the world and the construction sector in particular will be a very different place. The evidence for this is simple just look at the construction industry in 1965 compared to today. By embracing new ecological and sustainable building practices the industry in 2050 can still be the driving economic force it is now, more importantly though it could potentially be the driving environmental one as well.