This article is the responsibility of PLMJ
Written by: Andreia Candeias Mousinho, Urban Planning partner at PLMJ
The phenomenon of climate change has been studied and discussed for a long time and the consequent need to develop and implement adaptation and/or mitigation measures that allow mitigating its most serious effects and even influencing it in a positive way.
We are taking important steps as societies and in some parts of the world we are already living a time of effective implementation of measures, without which we would be leaving future generations a world designed by old man Restelo.
Driven by ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and create a climate-neutral Europe by 2050, states have been crafting climate and energy policies for economic decarbonisation, notably by implementing heavy legislative packages. .
It turns out that, although the environmental and energy sectors are the ones that appear first in the equation, there are others that cannot be left out and that, in stormy days like the recent ones, come to the fore: the territorial planning sector.
According to a study carried out by the United Nations in 2018, in 2050 68% of the population will live in cities. Although this percentage must be adjusted according to the current pandemic situation, it is unlikely that there will be human pressure on urban centers (eventually aggravated by climate migrants/refugees) and, as well as the dispersal of buildings outside the urban perimeters.
In this scenario, it is incomprehensible that pre-existing planning mechanisms are not used (even in an “intermediate” assumption) to project the territory from a sustainability perspective.
Today there is already a palette of territorial management instruments (sectoral and special programmes, municipal master plans, etc.) which, based on strategic guidelines such as the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity, resources and natural and landscape heritage, sustainable use and the prevention and minimization of risks, allows the definition and execution of regulations and measures that can contribute to the sought climate neutrality and, at the same time, face or, at least, minimize natural phenomena such as a storm in December.
And we can’t stick with the old talk of patency or reduced construction, as if not building in a country that desperately needs housing is even an option. We have to be much more ambitious and know how to come up with new solutions to new problems that are balanced and capable of being achieved and desired by all. The issue at hand is so urgent that it defies consideration of dimensions that can no longer be absent from planning and building projects.
The promotion of sustainable buildability is unavoidable.
Imagine the green, energy efficient building, built with sustainable and reused materials, flanked by “beds” with vertical farming, low water consumption and food producer, located in the immediate vicinity of risk areas, with the concomitant implementation of measures to minimize that risk.
On the other hand, the promotion of the new building must be seen as a way of solving/contributing to the solution/minimization of existing problems.
In addition, we must be able to promote the rehabilitation of illegal or unfinished buildings and the conversion of obsolete buildings into sustainable buildings, framed in a commitment to regenerate the environment, or, failing that, with the demolition and reuse of its recoverable materials.
It is not believed that a perfect reality can be achieved (this one, only that of Rafael Hitlodeu, on the trip to Utopia). But we have the responsibility to believe that the construction combined with the sustainable planning of the territory, with the bases and mechanisms that it already has today, can be not an enemy, but an effective ally to minimize the impacts of climate change.
Listen to an episode of the PLMJ Podcast on the subject here.
Source: Observadora
