Looking ahead to the upcoming winter, Europe is faced with a serious challenge that is intricate in nature. It will be a third consecutive winter of energy crisis for the continent and the Russia–Ukraine conflict has further exacerbated the situation. In the words of Alex Munton, a Rapidan Energy Group consultant and expert on global gas markets, “this is the most extreme energy crisis that has ever occurred in Europe”. The aim of this article is to explore how and why we got ourselves into this predicament and what can be done to get out of it.

“The nuts and bolts of it”: background, and what it all means for Europe

Energy security is of key significance to the European Union’s economy, and Europe is approaching the winter season with growing concern over the deepening energy crisis. Given there were spikes in the price of electricity and natural gas during the last two winters, it would almost feel like a “déjà-vu”, but this year Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated matters further.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest quarterly Gas Market Report, “Russia’s continued curtailment of natural gas flows to Europe has pushed international prices to painful new highs, disrupted trade flows, and led to acute fuel shortages in some emerging and developing economies, with the market tightness expected to continue well into 2023”. While Russia used to supply roughly 40% of the European Union’s gas consumption by pipeline, since the beginning of the conflict, its exports have been reduced by 75%. The leaks discovered in the Nord Stream 1 gas pipe in September limited the supply of gas even further, and these reductions have had negative implications for consumers, businesses, and economies.

To describe the ongoing turbulence in the energy market, figures speak louder than words. For one, annual inflation in the European Union reached almost 9% in June. Subsequently, the European Central Bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point to mitigate price increases. Nevertheless, food prices have reportedly surged. In the year up to August, cheese was up by 43%, beef by 27% percent, and milk powder was up by more than 50%. Experts are increasingly concerned about “fuel poverty”.

“Acta, non verba": taking measures

On 18 October, the European Commission published its 2022 State of the Energy Union report.  The report emphasises the challenges the Union has faced in the last year and the efforts it has made in tackling them. The document details the Union’s policy response, highlighting the REPowerEU plan, along with the adoption of new minimum gas storage obligations, the gas demand reduction targets and additional measures to reduce electricity demand. As part of the plan, EU nations have been asked to cut their gas consumption by 15% between 1 August 2022 and 31 March 2023.

According to the Commission’s report, the EU has already managed to fill its gas storage to around 91% ahead of the upcoming winter. Still, the above-mentioned International Energy Agency’s report suggests that behavioural change will be necessary to avoid worsening the gas crisis in Europe. It states that a 13% reduction in demand would be required to keep storage levels above 33% into 2023, given that flows are lower.

Notably, the share of Russian pipeline gas in EU gas imports has dropped from 41% in 2021 to 9% in September 2022. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been identified as an alternative energy source, and now accounts for 32% of the EU's total net gas imports. As a result, the International Energy Agency is forecasting an increase in Europe’s LNG imports by over 60 billion cubic metres this year.

“Treat the cause, not the symptom”: so what’s next?

In pursuit of affordable, secure, and sustainable energy, Europe is looking toward a green transition, and it is moving in the right direction. For instance, the Commission’s report finds that, from May to August 2022, the EU generated a record 12% of its electricity from solar, and 13% from wind. Moreover, it forecasts that the share of renewables in the electricity mix is expected to grow from 37% in 2021 to 69% in 2030.

Even though there are well-founded energy-related concerns for the upcoming winter, it is likely that Europe will have enough resources. However, the future holds a new challenge that has yet to be faced, i.e. the year that is to come, and the ones that will follow. In spite of the fact that Europe has imposed sanctions on Russia and reduced gas imports, over 40% of Europe’s gas storage this winter is Russian. This means Europe will have to find a way to secure resources.

Therefore, we should seek to treat the cause, not the symptom of the issue. That means focusing on policy responses that can provide energy security. According to the World Energy Outlook 2022 (WEO) by the International Energy Agency, “investments in clean electricity and electrification, along with expanded and modernised grids”, are one cost-effective way to cut emissions quickly. Diversification of sources of fuel and new renewable energy projects also contribute to the European Union’s aim to guarantee sustainable and affordable energy for its citizens.

In conclusion, Europe is facing challenging times ahead that require an effective and timely response. And as the International Energy Agency report states, “solidarity, unity and responsible household behaviour will be crucial to ensure supply security”.

🌍Today is 𝓔𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓱 𝓞𝓿𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓸𝓽 𝓓𝓪𝔂 the day when human beings consumed all the annual resources of the planet at their disposal.

From today we are in debt.

🕰 There is still a lot to 31 December, what do you think?

✋Our way of producing and consuming is unsustainable: intensive farming, land consumption and cementification, road transport, fossil fuels as the main energy production and much more. We cannot go on like this. The new generations have understood this for a long time, it is time to listen to them.. Because tragic calamities will become the norm. Record temperatures, droughts and heatwaves remind us of this every day.

🌳𝐖𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞.

👩‍💻Check our graphics to know what happened!

✊Still a lot needs to be done and the time to act is now! Ultimately, the fight to avert planetary breakdown is intersectional! We invite you to follow Third World Network and futuros indigenas! And of course Arbury Road! ❤️

1- UPSIDES

2- DOWNSIDES

3 - CRITICISM

4- Key Challenges for the future

6- Intersectionality

7- TIME TO ACT IS NOW!

➡️ This is what emerges from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2021 report, presented yesterday at COP26 in Glasgow, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.

🌡 Scientists found that the average temperature in 2021, between January and September, was about 1.09 degrees above the 1850-1900 average. that is, above the temperatures of the pre-industrial period.

🌊 The report also shows that the increase in ocean levels has undergone a further surge since 2013. If from 1993 to 2002 the rise in water was equal to 2.1 mm per year, from 2013 until today it was equal to 4.4 mm per year.

🌍 Record greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat have propelled the planet into uncharted territory, with far-reaching repercussions for current and future generations. Extreme events are becoming the new norm: WMO #StateofClimate 2021 #COP26.

🆘 There is no more time, we need to act now!

🌳 Today works of COP26 start in Glasgow. World governments must present their plans for compliance with the Paris Accords of 2015.

🧙🏻‍♀️ And happy Halloween to everyone!

The dramatic consequences of the ecological crisis, from global warming to the progressive depletion of environmental resources, from migration flows to the spread of unprecedented waves of pandemics, cannot but challenge philosophical reflection. In fact, we believe that the era of the so-called Anthropocene requires a radical rethinking of all the assumptions that have supported the modern era and the formal structures of modern thinking. It is our belief that a transcendental perspective allows us to shed light on contemporaneity not only from the perspective of the ongoing material processes, but also from the point of view of the conceptual premises, within which the ecological issues are placed. In this sense, our commitment as a research group on transcendental philosophy is directed as much to the critique of mainstream paradigms as to the opening of new philosophical and political perspectives.

In its urgency, the current ecological crisis clearly shows how a transcendental kind of thinking can possibly lead to a political stance. However, this does not imply neither a specific kind of ideological adhesion nor a new subordination of philosophy to militant commitment. On the contrary, we believe that only the full awareness of the autonomy of philosophy can allow to criticize all those common-sense devices, that dominate the public opinion with regard to the ecological crisis. In order to be up to what is happening, transcendental philosophy is called to move against the modern and post-modern semantics of political representation, towards what we call a plurality of jurisprudential practices.

The complexity of the so-called ‘ecological transition’ reveals the shortcomings of the conceptual framework of modern political science. That is not simply inadequate, but rather, it is itself part of the problem. From our point of view, if philosophy wants to effectively deal with the questions at stake, it seems necessary to go over the constitutional lexicon of liberal political thinking, which is still based on the reciprocity between popular representation and the sovereignty of the State. In fact, the traditional framework of public law was inextricably linked to a sort of metabolic exchange, grounded on private appropriation on the one side, and boundless extractivism on the other. That is why we think that the new forms of mobilization and struggle characterizing the most significant ecological claims urgently require a conceptual shift in political thinking, which we propose to conceive of in terms of jurisprudence. That is, a politics of “cases” and legal disputes (see, for example, the Royal Dutch Shell case), [1] which does not neglect nor disregard the importance of contexts and institutional actors, but rather assumes them as part of a plural field of forces where multiple relationships and new alliances are grafted. These latter are not shaped under the banner of alleged identity affiliations, but set up through sharing of material and environmental goals, with regard to specific claims and contexts. Therefore ‘politics’, conceived of as a collective exercise of jurisprudence, should imply the ability to build associations in order to socially sustain legal ecological issues and to file them to national and international courts, but should no longer imply the ‘conquest of the State’ as its ultimate telos.

At the same time, such a politics should face the Anthropocene highlighting its socio-economic roots and its intrinsic relation to a historically determined mode of production. In this sense, we reject any approach that understands ecology as detached from the critique of economic relations within the processes of contemporary capitalist valorization. We also reject a de-historicized, and therefore ideological perspective, promoting a reified and hypostatic conception of “nature” as alien to human social and political relations. We rather refer to those theoretical approaches that, in recent years, have denounced the capitalist substrate of the Anthropocene: below the Anthropocene, we find the Capitalocene. Precisely because of this conceptual shift, we believe that a politics as jurisprudence must necessarily take as its crucial topic the dimension of social reproduction, namely of all those practices and relationships of care and work that, although removed from the logic of capitalist production, preside over the reproduction of life and society.

Given this theoretical framework, we think the following programmatic points to be essential:

1. The ecological issue is a political issue, insofar as it involves the status and the forms that preside over common agency and social relationships.

2. There is no real way out of the “ecological crisis” without a critical rethinking of the economic-productive structure, models of socialization, forms of political government, and legal system. For this reason, we reject any rhetoric of “sustainable development.”

3. The critical rethinking of the economic-productive structure and the forms of politics necessarily calls into question the exercise of philosophical practice as a dismantle of the ideological assumptions of the dominant order of discourse and, at the same time, as the creation of a new conceptual toolbox. In this sense, our philosophical proposal moves within the horizon of a new transcendental philosophy.

4. The processes of politicization are no longer articulated on the basis of modern legitimacy and representation, but are produced at the level of interference between the institutional level and the concrete contexts in which disputes and mobilizations are activated. For us, the ecological challenge does not end with summits, proclamations, and international conferences. On the contrary, it is played out at the level of targeted regulatory interventions, specific political stances, and molecular claims: court decisions of all levels, committees and associations formed from below for local claims, contextual alliances, self-organization and self-government of territories.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Accepting the appeal filed by environmental associations, non-governmental organizations, and more than 17,000 citizens, the District Court of The Hague (trade and business section) ordered Shell, in a ruling dated May 26, 2021, to reduce CO2 emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030.

Before March 2020, very few people in the world could say they had heard or used the word “lockdown” in the past 24 hours. Six months later, we have all grown accustomed to hearing about lockdowns every day of our lives, even if we don’t live in English-speaking countries. No commuting to work, no school, no gym and no sports, no crowded restaurants and bars, no holidays - the list of restrictions could go on. In nearly every country in the world, life seemed to pause for a period: no cars in the street, no planes in the sky, no light in office buildings. In the absence of any other reason to be cheerful, a hopeful consideration started to circulate on news outlets and social media: at least the planet can breathe a little. Videos showing wild animals taking over started to populate everyone’s news feed, and the most optimistic commentators started to wonder about the positive impacts of lockdowns on global heating. If people are just staying at home and the economy has stopped, they argued, emissions of greenhouse gases (which are responsible for heating the planet) must have reduced drastically. Regrettably, the hopes of many environmentalists were dashed by post-lockdown measurements, which showed that, at best, a 7% reduction in carbon emissions may be achieved by the end of this year. If you stop the entire economy for several months you only get a minimal reduction in emissions - this is enough to show how profound a change is required to avert the impending climate catastrophe.

Although lockdowns have not proven very effective in countering global heating, the pandemic has certainly given new fuel to the heated debate on the climate crisis. Not only has it shown what enormous changes to our lifestyle are required when the forces of nature fall out of our control, but also it has given us an opportunity to think about where we should be heading as a global society. With all major economies in crisis, governments around the world are promising an unprecedented wave of investment to finance the recovery. Fortunately for the planet and all its inhabitants, in many cases the announcement of these funds has come together with a renewed commitment to transition to a green economy. China has recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060, while the European Union has raised its ambitions by proposing a 60% cut in emissions by 2030, on course for carbon neutrality in 2050. This means that two of the world’s three biggest emitters are now pledging stronger action than ever before (while the USA, led by climate skeptic President Donald Trump, are scheduled to withdraw from any commitments in November this year).

But is this enough? Why do we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and does it matter how fast we do it? There is much talk about ‘carbon neutrality’, but what does this mean exactly? To answer such questions, the United Nations (UN) has created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides world leaders with the knowledge required to tackle climate change. The IPCC, set up in 1988, is one of the greatest examples of scientific collaboration in world history: researchers from most countries in the world come together to review all the available evidence on climate change and publish reports that are agreed to by all members. In 2018, at the request of the UN countries gathered in Paris in 2015 to discuss climate change, the IPCC published its latest Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. Guided by the findings of this report, we can begin to understand if the commitments made by leading economies such as China and the EU are ambitious enough to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis.

Global heating: the basics

The Earth is heating up because the world economy is powered by burning coal, oil and gas, which releases gases in the atmosphere that increase the intensity of the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that keeps the Earth warm by trapping sun rays reflected by the planet’s surface. However, as more greenhouse gases end up in the atmosphere, more sun rays remain trapped, and this raises the average temperature of the planet. The three greenhouse gases produced in great quantities by human activities are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is by far the most abundant and so it’s taken as a reference, and often just shortened to “carbon” for ease of use.

Because human activities started emitting these gases abundantly only after the industrial revolution took off in the 1800s, the IPCC measures the extent of global heating by comparing today’s average global temperature with that of 1850. The 2018 Special Report starts off by reminding us that the planet has already warmed up by 1°C since then. It seems like a ridiculous amount to get worried, yet all scientists in the world agree that if the average global temperature rises by more than 2°C, Very Bad Things will happen. The list of risks is quite well known to everyone by now, and the task of imagining them has been made easier by the events of the latest years: tremendous forest fires in California, in Australia and in the Amazon; ice melting in the Arctic and the consequent rising sea levels; hot days everywhere; floods and heavy rain; loss of biodiversity and disruption to key ecosystems sustaining life on the planet.

The IPCC’s Special Report goes a step further, and suggests that keeping the warming below 1.5°C instead of 2°C by the year 2100 would be a very good idea. The likelihood of hot extremes, heavy precipitation and droughts is significantly reduced if we manage to keep the temperature lower, thus preventing the suffering of millions of people around the world. But this means that global efforts to reduce carbon emissions must increase significantly compared to what has been achieved in the last few decades.

Our carbon budget

Both the carbon emitted in the past and what we are emitting now contribute to temperature rise both today and in the future, because carbon remains in the atmosphere for a very long time. Therefore, it matters how much carbon we put in the atmosphere overall. Thanks to the scientific models that link concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to temperature increase, we can calculate what is usually called our “carbon budget”, i.e. the amount of carbon we can afford to emit to stay below an agreed temperature increase. Given that we want to stay below 1.5°C, what is our carbon budget?

Let’s do some simple arithmetic. In the Special Report, the IPCC notes that we have already emitted approximately 2200 billion tons of carbon. A ton is roughly the weight of a passenger car. At the current level, we add to this approximately 40 billion tons of carbon every year. That’s more than 5 tons of gas per person, which is equivalent to the weight of approximately 5 cars. If we want to be reasonably sure to stay below 1.5°C , the IPCC estimates that we have around 500 billion tons of carbon left to emit: that’s our budget. At the current level of emissions, then, we would finish our budget in 500/40 = 12 years approximately, i.e. in 2032. That would set us on course to reach much higher temperatures by the end of the century, with the list of Very Bad Things looming over us.

[Image caption]: Historically, Europe and the United States have emitted the most carbon, but China has now taken the lead, and developing countries contribute a significant portion of global annual emissions.

What we need to do, then, is reduce the amount of emissions globally. By how much? The 2015 Paris Agreement was the latest major agreement between UN countries to mitigate global heating, but no mechanism was agreed to force individual countries to set a specific emissions target. An often-reported recommendation is to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, which means emitting net 0 billions of tons of carbon by 2050. This implies that in 30 years we must slash all of our 40 billion tons. We could do so by decreasing emissions by the same amount every year, which would give us a target of 33% reduction every decade. This is already an ambitious target, considering that emissions have increased by about 20% on average in the last three decades. And yet, it would not even guarantee we stay within our carbon budget. What matters is the sum of all emissions across the years: if we decreased emissions at a constant rate from today to reach net zero in 2050, our cumulative emissions would exceed our carbon budget.

So, we have to do even better. There are two options. Either we maintain a steady rate of decrease in emissions, but reach carbon neutrality earlier; or we make the rate of decrease faster at the start and reach carbon neutrality in 2050, but having emitted less carbon overall. The latter option is what the IPCC suggests in its Special Report when it discusses emission pathways: it calls on countries to start reducing emissions drastically now, and then relax the rate at which emissions are reduced. And this is why executive government bodies such as the EU Commission set intermediate targets. If the whole world adopted the EU’s target (obtaining a 60% reduction by 2030, and then carbon neutrality in 2050), the emission pathway would be compatible with warming of 1.5°C. But China’s emissions are going to increase at least until 2030, and the US is currently behaving as if the problem did not exist. Indeed, the IPCC Special Report makes it very clear that the mitigation ambitions stated by countries in Paris will not be enough to keep warming below 1.5°C.

[Image caption]: To keep global warming below 1.5°C, we must stay within our carbon budget: the sum of all our emissions over time. This means we must reduce global carbon emissions very fast.

Why we need bolder action from the EU

The climate crisis is a global problem, and efforts in understanding and responding to it involve the use of knowledge and skill in all fields of human development. I have tried to summarise where we are at the moment and I hope to have clarified how far the world’s response is from what it should be according to the available evidence. The reasons behind this shocking lack of action are various and worth delving into, but I would like to end the article by pointing out two reasons why developed economies such as the European Union should aim to go even beyond what the IPCC recommendations are for the global effort against climate change. .

The first is scientific in nature. We tend to think of climate change as a linear, progressive process: if the temperature rises by twice as much as a set target, the impacts on human activities will be twice as bad. This is not how the climate works: an increase in temperature may bring the climate to a tipping point, i.e. a point when an abrupt change occurs. This is because of climatic feedback loops. The best example of a feedback loop is melting ice in the Arctic. Ice is white, so it reflects light very well; as temperature rises, ice melts into darker water, so less light is reflected, more light is absorbed, and the temperature rises further. This may bring about unpredictably fast changes in the climate, to which we would not be able to adapt without terrible losses. There are at least four other major climatic feedback loops known: forest fires putting carbon into the atmosphere, melting permafrost releasing methane, freshwater bodies also releasing methane, and forest dieback leading to loss of precious carbon-absorbing trees. The danger posed by these loops is hard to predict, so it is paramount that we prevent global heating from overshooting to higher temperatures: this calls on world leaders to act now rather than later.

Secondly, there is an aspect of climate change that relates to social justice. The countries that have historically emitted the most carbon (i.e. developed countries such as the US, the EU and Japan) must be responsible for the greatest efforts in reducing their emissions. If social justice is important to us, we also need to consider that the worst effects of the climate crisis will be felt by the poorer countries, which have only contributed in minimal part to the problem. Developed economies are in the best position to lead the way in taking action. On the one hand, they can finance the technological innovations required to transition to green power. On the other hand, because their wealth already ensures the wellbeing of the vast majority of the population, they can promote less carbon-intensive lifestyles.

[Image caption]: Since the industrial revolution, European countries and the US have emitted the most carbon.

What we should expect from the European Union, then, is an even greater ambition than the global targets suggest. Many large economies such as the US, Russia and Japan are completely failing to rise up to the challenge. In this context, there is no denying that the new targets recently announced by the EU are a beacon of light in the dark. But if the bloc’s continued economic and political investments in the ideal of a green transition were strengthened further, this would put it in a position of economic and moral leadership that is destined to be envied and emulated by other countries. The success of any idea we may have that stems from the European project will be measured, in large part, by the EU’s ability to take leadership in the most difficult global challenge we face.

Le città europee sono cambiate durante la pandemia di Covid-19. Ad esempio, nuove piste ciclabili sono apparse dove prima il traffico bloccava le arterie delle città e inquinava l'aria. Nuove piante ed alberi sono stati piantati nei posti in cui migliaia di pedoni camminavano incessantemente. Seppur positivi, questi piccoli cambiamenti, rappresentano però una risposta troppo timida alle sfide odierne che le città si trovano ad affrontare oggi per la salute e l'ambiente: ciò di cui abbiamo bisogno è invece una risposta strutturata che possa garantire il benessere umano ed ambientale a lungo termine.

La costruzione e l'uso degli edifici in cui viviamo e lavoriamo rappresentano ad oggi il 40% delle emissioni globali di carbonio. Entro il 2050, l'Unione Europea si è impegnata a ridurre queste emissioni a zero. Tuttavia, entro la stessa data le città sperimenteranno anche un aumento della popolazione a livello globale: si prevede infatti che due miliardi di persone si trasferiranno nelle aree urbane nello stesso periodo. Entro il 2030, quasi il 9% della popolazione mondiale vivrà in sole 41 megalopoli (città con più di 10 milioni di abitanti). Allo stesso modo, il livello di urbanizzazione in Europa dovrebbe aumentare fino a circa l'80% nel 2050. A un tale aumento della popolazione urbana seguirà inevitabilmente un aumento delle emissioni, a meno di non riuscire a cambiare il nostro modo di vivere muoverci e lavorare.

Oltre alla crisi climatica, le città devono affrontare anche un'altra grande sfida: salvaguardare la salute degli abitanti. La pandemia ha evidenziato quanto sia fragile la salute di chi vive in città, colpendo più duramente le città più globali e fiorenti. Non si è trattato di un evento inaspettato, in passato altre importanti pandemie avevano già infatti rimodellato gli ambienti urbani . Anche prima della pandemia, la scarsa qualità dell'aria, la contaminazione dell'acqua e la mancanza di spazi verdi deterioravano già la salute e la qualità della vita urbana.

Nelle città, le crisi climatiche e sanitarie sono collegate . Gran parte delle emissioni prodotte nell'uso degli edifici derivano dai servizi finali necessari per garantire adeguati livelli di qualità ed igiene ambientale , come ad esempio riscaldare un'abitazione, raffrescare e ventilare un ufficio o illuminare una strada. Oltre a questo, le emissioni del settore dei trasporti sono la causa principale di inquinamento dell'aria urbana. Affrontare l'impatto ambientale delle città senza però comprometterne la qualità e la salute è quindi una sfida chiave per il raggiungimento del benessere urbano, soprattutto nel contesto di una crescita demografica frenetica.

L'era post-Covid vedrà l'UE in prima linea in questa battaglia: il pacchetto di ripresa proposto mira infatti ad affrontare la recessione economica causata dal Covid-19 sostenendo gli investimenti economici che consentono una transizione digitale e un futuro verde. Questa è una grande opportunità per ripensare e cambiare il modo in cui progettiamo e gestiamo gli edifici e i loro componenti.

Nella progettazione e gestione delle città si dovrà passare da sistemi statici a sistemi dinamici ereattivi. I sistemi urbani dovranno quindi essere in grado di variare le proprie prestazioni, in modo tale da poter offrire più servizi e ridurre al minimo il consumo di risorse, adattandosi in tempo reale ai cambiamenti nella domanda.

Perché passare a un modello reattivo?

Il nostro modo di vivere, muoverci e lavorare cambia continuamente e, di conseguenza, anche le nostre richieste di servizi, spazi ed edifici. Queste richieste sono quindi intrinsecamente dinamiche e variabili. Cambiamenti nella domanda possono verificarsi durante la stessa giornata, come succede per il bisogno di illuminazione artificiale o di trasporto; oppure possono verificarsi stagionalmente, come avviene per la necessità di riscaldamento e raffrescamento. Altre volte, le nostre esigenze cambiano invece in un arco di tempo più ampio, ad esempio a causa di eventi improvvisi i come le pandemie o le calamità ambientali, o a causa di lunghe trasformazioni sociali, come la transizione sempre più comune dal lavoro in ufficio allo smart working. Nonostante la natura intrinsecamente dinamica delle richieste e dei servizi, stiamo ancora progettando e costruendo gli edifici e le strutture delle nostre città per una prestazione costante nel tempo, per un unico scopo e, a volte, anche per un solo uso.

Le conseguenze di questa discrepanza tra design statico e requisiti dinamici sono visibili a diverse scale . A scala urbana, ci imbattiamo spesso in edifici abbandonati o spazi inutilizzati, che un tempo erano pieni di attività e ora sono semplicemente lasciati da parte. L’energia utilizzata e il carbonio emesso per costruirli risultano dunque sprecati. Allo stesso modo, durante la pandemia di Covid-19, diversi edifici per uffici sono rimasti vuoti per mesi. Questi edifici non erano stati progettati per adattarsi, fornire servizi diversi e rispondere a una presenza variabile. Sebbene vuoti, è stato difficile diminuire il loro consumo energetico senza comprometterne la manutenzione. Se lo smart working rimarrà un'opzione, dovremo riconsiderare il loro utilizzo e la loro gestione. La mancanza di riciclabilità di molti manufatti alla fine della loro vita utile è un altro esempio dello stesso problema: progettiamo edifici pensando ad un uso standard e immutabile, anche se sappiamo che non saranno in grado di rispondere alla loro funzione con la stessa prestazione nel tempo .

Questa mancanza di reattività nel design ha un costo energetico e di carbonio, ma anche un effetto dannoso sul nostro benessere e sulla nostra salute. Progettare per un uso standard nel tempo e nello spazio si traduce anche in una mancanza di personalizzazione, il che significa che gli edifici non riescono a fornire il servizio adeguato al momento giusto. Ciò è molto evidente quando pensiamo al modo in cui progettiamo il comfort ambientale negli edifici, dove utilizziamo modelli standard che rappresentano un bisogno medio ma non l'effettivobisogno dell'abitante. Ciò comporta uno spreco di energia e dell’opportunità di migliorare il benessere e prevenire problemi di salute come le "Sick building syndrome".

Che aspetto ha un design reattivo?

Il responsive design non implica necessariamente soluzioni high-tech. L’esempio più semplice di design reattivo è il pensareun oggetto per più scopi e senza dover mai ricorrere al suo smaltimento. Molti oggetti ordinari, come i mobili, sono già progettati per più scopi. Progettare un prodotto in modo che possa essere facilmente smontato e riutilizzato è un atteggiamento intrinsecamente reattivo. Ne sono un esempio gli edifici costruiti utilizzando strutture modulari, prefabbricate e a secco. Quando un prodotto raggiunge la fine della sua vita, un design reattivo assicura che il prodotto stesso possa essere riciclato. r Il passaggio dalle interfacce analogiche ai touch screen digitali è stato in parte indotto dalla stessa esigenza di consentire un infinito numero di riconfigurazioni. Più a funzione e il servizio diventano complessi, più complessa diventa la soluzione tecnologica.

Le soluzioni reattive hanno tre caratteristiche principali:

1. Sono sensibili e connesse. Hanno sensori in grado di leggere in tempo reale i cambiamenti nella domanda e comunicarli via internet ;

2. Hanno controlli intelligenti in grado di analizzare i dati, identificare patterns e individuare cause comprendere modelli e trigger;

3. Sono dotati di attuatori flessibili e variabili che possono fornire una risposta variabile dove e quando necessario.

La buona notizia è che gli attuali progressi nelle tecnologie di rilevamento, attuatori dinamici e controlli automatizzati, ora anche potenziati dall'intelligenza artificiale (AI), permettono di progettare soluzioni reattive in maniera economicamente sostenibile e tecnologicamente fattibile anche per servizi complessi.

Diverse città fanno già affidamento su una connessione wireless aperta al pubblico e una sensoristica diffusa. Molti Comuni riescono già a rilevare in tempo reale informazioni importanti sul livello di 'inquinamento atmosferico, di traffico o di affollamento degli spazi. Tuttavia, le città hanno ancora un potenziale non utilizzato per diventare qualcosa in più di semplici spazi sensorizzati, e connessi. Con l’aiuto dell'intelligenza artificiale, le città possono ora utilizzare in maniera efficace tutti i dati raccolti dai sensori e identificare le cause di eventuali problemi. Il passo successivo è ora quindi quello di diventare una città reattiva , in grado di fornire soluzioni in tempo reale e rispondere efficacemente anche alla variazione di questi importanti fattori, come l'aumento del consumo di elettricità, la domanda di trasporto pubblico o l'inquinamento atmosferico. Ad esempio, una città reattiva é capace di identificare in tempo reale le aree con la peggiore qualità dell'aria , individuare le ragioni e fornire schemi di gestione del traffico ad hoc, come l'applicazione di un divieto temporaneo sui veicoli inquinanti.

Cosa deve fare l'Unione Europea?

Per progettare / gestire gli edifici e le città in maniera reattiva o responsive dobbiamo ancora affrontare alcuni ostacoli. Istituzioni come l'Unione Europea possono abbattere questi ostacoli migliorando le normative nel settore delle costruzioni. Qui vengono proposte tre raccomandazioni:

1. I regolamenti e gli standard devono passare da una progettazione basata sulla conformità a una progettazione basata su prove prestazionali, dove lo sviluppo di prestazioni reattive e il controllo automatizzato sono incentivati. Stabilire requisiti prestazionali minimi era sufficiente quando dati sulle prestazioni , sulle condizioni meteorologiche e sulle preferenze degli utenti non erano disponibili in tempo reale.. Tuttavia, ora che i dati in tempo reale sulla domanda e sull'offerta sono facilmente ottenibili, possiamo pensare diversamente i requisiti dei manufatti edilizi .

2. Le autorità competenti dovrebbero facilitare l'integrazione di sistemi reattivi su scale diverse per ottenere edifici e città che rispondono in maniera efficace ed efficiente. Ad esempio, la risposta di un vetro reattivo e di un sistema di raffrescamento dinamico devono essere integrati con l'intero sistema di gestione dell'edificio. L'edificio reattivo deve, a sua volta, essere integrato nella smart grid a livello di distretto e città. Infine, la smart grid del singolo paese deve essere collegata alla smart grid europea.

3. Le città stanno diventando più intelligenti, ma non sono cambiate notevolmente dal punto di vista degli utenti. Queste soluzioni reattive devono essere human centered. Tuttavia, mancano interfacce adeguate che riescano a sintonizzare gli utenti e i controlli automatizzati, comprendendo le loro preferenze ed esigenze. Gli edifici devono interagire con le persone e imparare da loro. Se non progettiamo controlli reattivi che sono human centred, non riusciremo a risolvere questa sfida e saranno sabotati dagli utenti. Allo stesso modo, gli abitanti delle città saboteranno i processi di raccolta dati se i governi locali non riusciranno ad agire come dei custodi dei dati locali, proteggendo la nostra privacy e salvaguardando i nostri diritti I governi locali devono quindi creare un sistema che sia capace di fornire sempre più servizi ai ai cittadini , proteggendone allo stesso tempo la privacy e assicurando che gli algoritmi non discriminino nessuno.

La città connessa, sensibile e intelligente non risolverà le attuali crisi climatiche e sanitarie urbane se non riuscirà a fornire soluzioni tecnologiche reattive, in grado di adattarsi efficacemente ai cambiamenti della domanda su tutte le scale temporali e spaziali. Ancora più importante è garantire che ciò avvenga a misura d’uomo e di donna. In definitiva, la mancanza di comprensione delle molteplici esigenze delle persone, inclusa la protezione della privacy, è la sfida più grande per le tecnologie reattive nell’ottenere soluzioni veramente ecologiche ed efficienti. L'UE deve essere in prima linea nelle soluzioni reattive e human centred con politiche che sappiano riequilibrare i nostri consumi e le nostre richieste, ma che al contempo salvaguardino il benessere dei cittadini.

Cities in Europe have undergone many changes during the Covid-19 pandemic. New cycle lanes have appeared where traffic jams used to clog cities' arteries and pollute the air. New plants and trees have been planted where thousands of pedestrians used to endlessly stroll. These small changes are a positive, yet simultaneously reserved response to today’s health and environmental challenges: what we need is a structured response to ensure both human and environmental well-being in the longer term.

The construction and use of the buildings we live and work in currently accounts for 40% of global carbon emissions. By 2050, the European Union has committed to cut these emissions to net zero. At the same time, cities globally will experience a surge in population: two billion people are forecasted to move to urban areas in the same period. By 2030, nearly 9% of the world's population will be living in just 41 megacities (cities with more than 10 million inhabitants). The level of urbanisation in Europe is expected to increase to approximately 80% in 2050. Such an increase in urban population will inevitably be followed by an increase in emissions, unless we change our way of living, moving and working.

Besides the climate crisis, cities are also facing another major challenge: safeguarding urban citizens’ health. The pandemic has highlighted how fragile the health of urban citizens is and has hit hardest in the most thriving global cities. This was not an unexpected event, as other major pandemics had already re-shaped urban environments in the past. Even before the pandemic, poor air quality, water contamination and the lack of green spaces were already recognised as major problems affecting urban dwellers’ health and quality of life.

Climate and health crises in cities are intertwined. A large part of the emissions produced in the use of buildings are due to the end-services needed to ensure adequate levels of indoor environmental quality and hygiene, such as heating a home, cooling and ventilating an office or illuminating a street. On top of this, emissions from transportation are the major pollutants of urban air. This means that tackling the environmental impact of cities without compromising the quality and health of indoor environments in buildings is a key challenge for the well-being of urban populations, especially in the context of a fast-paced urban population growth.

The post-Covid era will see the EU at the forefront of this battle: the proposed recovery package aims to tackle the economic recession caused by Covid-19 by supporting economic investments that enable a digital transition and a green future. This is a great opportunity to re-think and make a shift in the way we design and operate buildings and their components.

The design and operation of cities will need to move from static and unresponsive systems to dynamic, responsive ones. They must be able to vary performance and serve more than one purpose to minimise resource consumption and maximise end-services, adapting in real-time to shifts in demand.

Why shift to a responsive model?

Our way of living, moving and working continuously changes and, accordingly, so do our demands for end-services, spaces and buildings. These demands are therefore intrinsically dynamic and variable. Changes in demand can occur during the same day, such as the need for artificial lighting or transportation; or they can occur seasonally, such as the need for heating and cooling. Other times, our needs change within a larger time-scale, for instance due to disruptive events such as pandemics and environmental calamities, or because of social transformations, such as the increasingly common transition from office-based to smart working. Despite this intrinsic dynamic nature of demands and services, we are still designing and constructing our cities and buildings for one fixed performance in time, one single purpose and, sometimes, even one single use.

The consequences of this mismatch between static design and dynamic demands are visible on several levels. At the city level, we often come across abandoned buildings or unused spaces, which used to be thriving with human activities and now are just left aside, with their embodied energy and carbon unused. Similarly, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, several office buildings have been left empty for months. These office buildings were not designed to adapt to different functions and occupancy loads in a short time. Even when left unoccupied, it was difficult to switch off their energy consumption without compromising their maintenance and now, if and when smart working remains as a flexible option, we will need to reconsider their use. The lack of recyclability of many manufactured items at the end of their useful life is another example of the same problem: we design buildings thinking at one standard and unchanging use, even if we know that they will not always be able to perform in the required manner.

This lack of a responsive design has an energy and carbon cost, but also a detrimental effect on our well-being and health. Designing for a standard use in time and space also translates into a lack of personalisation, which means that buildings can fail to provide the adequate service at the right time. This is highly evident when we think of the way we design for environmental comfort in buildings, where we use standard models that represent an average need but not the actual need of the occupant. This leads to a waste in energy but also misses opportunities to enhance well-being and prevent health problems such as “sick building syndromes”.

What does a responsive design look like?

Responsive design does not necessarily imply high-tech solutions. The simplest responsive design is the design of an object to serve multiple purposes, which never requires disposal. Many ordinary objects, such as furniture, are designed for multiple purposes. Designing a product so that it can be easily disassembled and reused is an intrinsically responsive attitude. Examples are buildings that are constructed using modular, prefabricated and dry structures. When the component reaches the end of its useful life, a responsive design ensures we can recycle the product. The transition from analogue interfaces to digital touch screens has partially been induced by the same need to allow a flexible re-configuration an infinite number of times. The more complex the function and the end-service one needs to provide, the more complex the technological solution. Responsive design solutions have three main characteristics:

1. They are sensitive and connected. We need sensors that can read real-time changes in demand and networks to communicate this data.

2. They have smart controls that can analyse the data and understand patterns and triggers;

3. They are provided with flexible and variable actuators that can provide a response where and when needed.

The good news is that current advances in sensing technologies, dynamic actuators and automated controls enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), now makes it feasible and cost-effective to design responsive solutions for very complex end-services.

Several cities can already rely on a publicly available wireless network connection and on sensing devices. Local municipalities can get real-time information on many important factors such as air pollution, traffic congestion or occupancy loads. However, cities have the potential to become much more than just instrumented, sensitive and connected spaces. By using AI-enhanced controls, cities can now actually use the data collected by sensors to understand the patterns and the underlying reasons behind these factors. The next step is therefore to become a responsive city, which can also respond effectively to the variation in these important factors, such as increases in electricity consumption, demand for public transport or air pollution. To give an example, in a responsive city we could map the areas with the worst air quality in real time, identify the reasons and patterns, and respond to local surges in pollution with ad-hoc traffic management solutions, such as enforcing a temporary ban on polluting vehicles.

What must the European Union do?

There are still a few obstacles to achieving the required level of responsive behaviour in buildings and cities. Institutions such as the European Union could help address the challenges by improving regulations in the construction sector. Here, three recommendations are proposed:

1. Regulations and standards need to move from rule-of-thumb and compliance-based design to evidence-based and performance-based design, where the development of responsive performances and automated control decisions are incentivized. When data on real-time performance, weather and occupant preferences was not available, it made sense to establish minimum static benchmark requirements. Now, however, that real-time data on demand and supply is easily attainable, we can set different requirements that are not fixed in time.

2. Regulators should facilitate the integration of responsive systems across different scales to achieve effective and efficient responsive buildings and cities. For instance, the responsive window and cooling systems must be integrated with the whole building management system. The responsive building must, in turn, be integrated into the district and city scale smart grid. Finally, the single country smart grid must be linked to the European smart grid.

3. Cities may be getting smarter, but they haven’t changed noticeably, from a user perspective. These responsive solutions must be human-centred. However, there is a lack of interfaces for bridging the users to the AI-enhanced automated controls and understanding their preferences and needs. Buildings need to interact with people, and learn from them. If automated responsive controls are not human-centred, they can’t solve this challenge and they will be sabotaged by building occupants. In the same way, urban citizens will sabotage real-time data collection processes if municipal governments don’t become the guardians of the local data. Local governments must create a framework that empowers urban citizens while also protecting privacy and ensuring that the algorithms used do not discriminate against particular groups of people.

The connected, sensitive, smart city will not solve the current urban climate and health crises if we don’t provide responsive technological solutions that can effectively adapt to shifts in demands at all time scales. More important, is ensuring this is done in a human-centric manner. Ultimately, the lack of understanding of people’s multiple needs, including their privacy protection, is the biggest challenge for responsive technologies to achieve truly clean and efficient solutions. The EU must be at the forefront of human-centred responsive solutions with policies that re-balance our consumptions and demands and allow citizens' well-being to flourish.

At the beginning of March, an independent group of United Nations human rights experts released a statement calling for an immediate end to further industrialisation of an area along the Mississippi river in Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley”, in what they considered to be a case of “environmental racism”. Extending between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the region previously known as “Plantation country”, and where for decades African slaves were forced to work, is now home to 150 oil refineries, plastic manufacturing plants and other chemical facilities. The area, primarily inhabited by an African American community, has been on the news due to the overwhelming number of cancer cases, respiratory diseases and other health problems among its population.

The “Cancer Alley” case provides, as I seek to illustrate below, a perfect condensed example of the imperious need to incorporate the concept of intersectionality in environmental movements. Coined in the late 80s by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality provides a frame that acknowledges that many of the world’s social problems are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice. Such a framework aims to shed light on those who fall through the cracks of the separate silos approach characteristic of the normative mindset. Based on the notion that all human beings have intersecting identities, Intersectional Theory explores how an individual’s overlapping cultural, political and social identities all influence the way they are able to experience the world around them.

But why is that relevant to the environmental movement? As Naomi Klein argues in her most recent book, although the current climate emergency is physically caused by the cumulative amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it reflects the still prevailing extractive mindset through which we have been looking at the Earth and the majority of its inhabitants as resources to be used and then discarded in the process of endless expansion. When it comes to climate action and environmental activism, justice must be put at the centre of the transition towards a low-carbon society.

It was precisely this realisation that led Leah Thomas, environmental activist and writer with a background in Environmental Science and Policy, to create the Intersectional Environmentalism movement. Drawing on Crenshaw’ work, Intersectional Environmentalism seeks to investigate how injustices happening to people - especially marginalised groups - and the planet are interconnected. Going beyond academic research, intersectional environmental activism aims to support and provide a platform for the voices of those who are most affected by the climate crisis, and which are too often ignored.

Bringing an intersectional approach to the environmental movement requires drawing connections and working together with other social movements. But this is no easy task. Most of us are used to compartmentalising each crisis into independent boxes. In addressing the transition to a low-carbon society, it is essential to highlight how the overlapping crises the world is facing (climate change, racism, gender violence, rising inequalities, demagogic populism, ...) are strongly interlinked, and that, as a consequence, they can only be addressed through a systemic, historical and holistic vision of social and economic transformation.

Focusing on the “Cancer Alley” case, many are the connections that can be drawn between environmental justice and social justice. It has been thoroughly reported that minorities are disproportionately more likely to live in areas impacted by pollution and/or susceptible to the effects of climate change. Nonetheless, governments and political representatives have continuously failed to protect these communities. For instance, despite the 2015 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US environmental body, confirming that there was a higher risk of cancer in the “Cancer Alley” region, approval was granted in 2018 for the development of yet another plastic plant and two other methanol production complexes. UN experts report that the pollution from the new plastic plant alone would lead to a duplication of the cancer risk in the area, disproportionately affecting African American residents.

In fact, data from the EPA shows that, in the predominantly African American districts of the area, the risk of cancer could be as high as 105 cases per million, compared to up to 75 per million in predominantly white ones. Besides exacerbating environmental pollution, the impacts of that pollution, by affecting primarily the African American community, would also augment the gap in the quality of life and health between BIPOC and white communities - environmental racism.

As mentioned above, the lower Mississippi River area was once a region of vast plantations, where enslaved Africans worked. Since many within the African American community in the area, those most affected by the pollution from the petrochemical plants, are the descendants of those enslaved Africans, there are legitimate grounds for calling on governments “to recognise and pay reparations” for continuous harm perpetrated against the African American community “rooted in slavery and colonialism”.

But the links between racism and repair, and climate activism are not the only ones that can be drawn between social problems and the climate crisis. Health, workers’ rights, gender discrimination, political movements and climate change also interlink.

Health care and climate change

In a study published earlier this year, a group of scientists reported that one in every five deaths that occurred in 2018 was caused by air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels. This value exceeds the combined annual number of deaths from smoking and malaria. A clear link was found between countries with the highest death toll and those having the biggest consumption of fossil fuels for powering plants, homes and vehicles.

An interesting contrast could be observed between the numbers registered in both Europe and the US, one in ten, and those of eastern Asia (including China), three times that value. This regional discrepancy is also symptomatic of the expansionist and imperialist mindset that has somehow prevailed in the western world, where emissions have been mostly lower through the shift of western industries to Asia. In a very real sense, low-paid jobs, poor working conditions and pollution in eastern Asia serve to ensure that the insatiable consumer culture is continuously being fed.

The same researchers are emphatic in stating that pollution from fossil fuel burning is a “key contributor to the global burden of mortality and disease”, estimating that they represent a burden of US$2.9tn in global economic and health costs. Thus, it becomes evident that not only does the burning of fossil fuels contribute to the continuous increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it also represents a staggering threat to public health.

Even under a scenario where the world moves quickly towards lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the natural disasters we are already experiencing (storms, fires, droughts, floods), will become increasingly more common in the future. When these natural disasters meet areas and communities with health care systems violently neglected or stripped off by austerity, thousands will pay with their lives. A good example of this was Puerto Rico’s situation after hurricane Maria in 2017.

Job security and climate change

One of the most commonly raised questions against a fast transition towards a low-carbon economy is what would happen to the vast number of workers who are currently employed by fossil fuel companies, or whose jobs are dependent on the extractive industries whose activities must be halted. It is a fair and utterly important question, and job guarantees are key for a rapid and just transition.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in air travel and lowered demand for fuels, accelerating the closure of several high polluting activities. Numerous stories of plants’ closures, with entire work forces losing their jobs, have made the news during the past year. It is only natural for the transition to a low-carbon economy to be faced with scepticism and fear by many. Ensuring job security is, therefore, of the utmost importance to achieve a rapid and just transition towards a low-carbon economy.

Workers from fossil fuel and other high polluting companies, as well as those whose jobs are dependent on these industries, should be given access to training programmes before seeing their jobs endangered. Many new sectors will be emerging and expanding, and so, ensuring that workers have access to training in the new skills required in those sectors, and that can take time to upskill while maintaining their jobs, is mandatory. Job security reduces the pressure on workers to remain attached to precarious jobs in environmentally detrimental activities, and allows for their integration into new projects, sometimes even within the same company as it changes its business model to adapt to market demands.

Equal opportunities and climate change

Childcare, education, and caring professions (which are mostly performed by women) are obvious examples of low carbon jobs. Many have called for these to be considered under the “green jobs” umbrella often evoked in transition policies. Such inclusion should ensure that they receive the same protection, investments and living wages as those of (majority male-dominated) workforces in the renewable energy sector, industrial efficiency, building and house retrofitting, and public transit sectors. In order to ensure equal opportunities as we move towards a low-carbon society, priority should be given to the adoption of policies relating to family leave, pay equity and free childcare.

Populism and climate change

Fear is inherent to change. The dramatic departure from the status quo required to cope with the climate emergency can be overwhelming. Since demagogic populist movements feed on people’s fears, the rise of nationalist, authoritarian, racist and xenophobic movements that has been taking place around the world may not be a surprise. So, when it comes to climate action and the transition to a low-carbon society, it is essential that these are rooted in justice (environmental, racial, gender, economic).

A political agenda that seeks to address the climate crisis, such as the Green New Deal (GND), must aim at the same time to close racial, gender and wealth gaps, eliminate poverty, create safe, stable and good jobs, ensure a universal and public health care system, fair access to housing and education. Only then it can gather the outside support from social movements, unions, and local communities required to make it a sustainable and tangible reality. Additionally, addressing the social insecurities prevents the growth of demagogic populist movements.

Seeking to debunk the claim often made by the right that the GND consists only of a compilation of left-wing wishes, such political agendas must provide a cohesive action plan for the future, addressing the many facets of everyday life from healthcare to employment. Making the case for how these parts of life overlap is key to achieving the degree of social and economic transformation that coping with climate disruption requires.

Failing to understand how the multiple crises the world is facing are inextricably interconnected has been a recipe for failure in addressing them. It is time we stop playing “my crisis is more urgent than yours”, because, as we have seen, they are often inseparable. In the words of Audre Lorde, “there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives”. A prosperous, transformative and sustainable environmental movement must be a just, fair and inclusive one, and that is only possible through the adoption of an intersectional approach, guaranteeing that no one falls through the cracks.

The European Union’s target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is a costly one. An annual investment of €260 billion is estimated as needed to advance EU transition to a low-carbon economy. To allocate funds in the best way, both public financial institutions and private investors need a clear framework to properly identify sustainable investment opportunities. The European system, the EU Taxonomy, only considers already sustainable activities, thus rewarding companies currently doing a good job. Nonetheless, several industrial activities, whether due to the nature of their business or to lack of finance, are in a worse position, despite their potential emission reduction. The introduction of a Transition Taxonomy may help address this gap, while, at the same time, avoid abrupt changes that might carry high societal costs.

In December 2015, the world watched 196 of its leaders commit to fight climate change and promote a rapid transition towards a low-carbon future.At the core of the Paris Agreement is the goal of limiting global temperature increase below 2°C while pursuing efforts to prevent it reaching 1.5°C. The Paris Agreement became a landmark moment, allowing for the world to grasp the real emergency of transitioning to a low-carbon society. In the following years, several of its signatories pledged to go even further in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), announcing plans to reach carbon neutrality in the upcoming decades.

Setting the example was the EU, which took upon its Member States the leadership of the world’s low-carbon transition. Last December, the European Commission presented The European Green Deal, detailing the roadmap for the EU’s future growth strategy aimed at decoupling economic growth from resource use and carbon emissions.

Finding the €260 billion investment, estimated by the Commission as the amount required to achieve the Union’s climate neutrality goal, might be easier than you think. In recent years, investors’ appetite for sustainable or green investment opportunities has increased significantly, with the annual global issuance of Green Bonds having tripled between 2016 and 2019, reaching €225 billion. However, investors need a clear framework to properly identify sustainable investments and understand which companies are already doing a good job, as well as those which are in a worse position, whether due to the nature of their business or due to lack of finance, but have the potential to improve.

But what are these sustainable or Green Bonds? Bonds can be seen as a loan taken by companies, government or banks in order to finance (or refinance) a given investment project. What is specific to Green Bonds is that the borrowed funds are meant to be allocated to investments in environmental and climate change projects which are deemed green, according to the Green Bonds Principles. The World Bank and the European Investment Bank were pioneers in issuing these types of bonds, with their Green Bonds and Climate Awareness Bonds, respectively.

To help guide investments towards sustainable projects, the European Commission developed the EU Taxonomy, an EU-wide classification system for environmentally sustainable economic activities. The goal of this system is to help sustainable finance participants (financial markets, companies, EU institutions and Member States) to assess the green financing potential of companies and projects, and evaluate a company’s environmental performance. In this way, investors can identify environmentally friendly activities, as well as promote the growth of low-carbon sectors.

As with any pioneering work, the EU Taxonomy is not beyond criticism. The Technical Expert Group (TEG) for sustainable finance set by the European Commission noted, in their Technical Report on Taxonomy published in March, that additional tools are required to help assess the potential for efficiency improvements in emission-intensive economic activities, which have so far been excluded from the EU Taxonomy.

A Transition Taxonomy, identifying companies for which improvements towards significantly better environmental performances can be pursued, is essential to reduce harmful environmental impacts of emission-intensive industries. In fact, industry was responsible for 17% of the Union’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2017, trailing only emissions from the energy sector. Given so, emission reduction from this sector must be a priority if the goal of carbon neutrality for the EU is to be achieved.

We must be realistic in accepting that some of these industries can never be green or compatible with an absolute-zero emissions future due to the nature of their processes, e.g., cement and steel manufacturing. But financing towards more efficient use of resources (from energy to materials), the incorporation of new technologies and methodologies, as well as the training of the workforce towards new green skills has the potential to reduce industrial emissions at the same time as maintaining jobs and equipping workers with new skills essential in the low-carbon economy we aim to build.

With industry representing one-in-four jobs globally, a complete shutdown of emission-intensive plants and sectors would have a disastrous social impact. As the gilet jaune episodes in France so clearly showed, the implementation of blind, one-way measures that, although inadvertently, result in an amplification of social inequalities and injustices, are likely to be met with significant resistance by civil society, undermining the positive environmental outcomes they were aiming at. A holistic approach to both social and environmental problems is mandatory from European leaders, and Transition Bonds can play an important role in coupling positive social and environmental outcomes.

Unfortunately, being aimed at emission-intensive industries, sceptical voices point out that Transition Bonds can be used by polluting companies as a cover up. The issuance of this type of bond offers companies without any real commitment to shifting away from current business practices a chance to boost their image - what is known as greenwashing. Another source of criticism lays in the fact that a gradual transition to more efficient, greener industrial practices might be insufficient given the timeframe the world has to reach net-zero emissions.

The solution may be to regulate the issuance of Transition Bonds for financing (or refinancing) new and existing transition projects through Transition Bonds Principles, whose structure should follow that of Green, Social and Sustainability Bonds Principles. Such structure includes defining the scope of possible uses for the proceeds, with issuers being required to state how the financing will be allocated to projects within a range of predefined transition-activities in specific categories, such as energy, transportation, industry and buildings. Furthermore, Transition Bond Principles must also delineate the process for project evaluation and selection. In this step of the process, it is essential that the companies wishing to issue Transition Bonds fully disclose the potentially negative environmental and social impacts and externalities of the project under evaluation. To ensure transparency in the allocation of the proceeds, the project progress should be tracked both through a formal internal process defined by the issuer, as well as through external audits. Transition Bond Principles should define specific reporting requirements and key measures of impact, prescribing penalties if companies fail to meet the targets they establish.

Although functioning in a similar way as other corporate debt instruments, by being bound to clear targets, transition bonds have the potential to incorporate broader social and economic benefits, while addressing the low-carbon transition in industry. Providing incentives for investment that reduce harmful environmental impacts from emission-intensive economic activities - Transition Taxonomy - will be an important lever for achieving the Union’s goals.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is facing the biggest economic shock since the 1930s. As funding packages are being discussed to address its effects, European leaders must avoid committing the same errors made in the response to the 2008 financial crisis, picking economic growth over environmental and social goals. The European Union has now the opportunity to promote a cleaner, more resilient and cost-effective industrial sector, aligned with the long-term objective of sustainable growth. Incorporating Transition Bonds into the EU Taxonomy is key to address both social and environmental problems in the long-term transition towards a low-carbon, sustainable economy.

The Encyclopedia Britannica states: “adaptation, in biology, the process by which a species becomes fitted to its environment. [...] Organisms are adapted to their environments in a great variety of ways: in their structure, physiology and genetics, in their locomotion or dispersal, in their means of defence and attack, in their reproduction and development, and in other respects”. 

Constant adaptation to our shared home

Life on Earth is the story of a continuous adaptation of different species to their environment. During the evolution, various animal and plant species have always internalized changing conditions, devising creative solutions for survival. Nowadays, the natural environment in which we live is undergoing deep and sudden changes, and despite the actions taken, it would be utopian to think that recent efforts, however great, would be able to solve the problem. 

So, what does adaptation mean when it comes to climate change? Adaptation implies the planning of strategies capable of anticipating the effects of climate change in order to significantly reduce its impact on particularly vulnerable individuals, places and economic systems. The creation of adaptive strategies is made particularly urgent by the speed at which these changes are taking place and that, given their pervasiveness, affect many aspects of our societies, as the EEA has also underlined. 

The European stage

At the European level, the discussion on this topic began in 2013. In fact, the European Commission drew up guidelines to help our society adapt to future climate change. Among the indications given to the Member States, the EU stressed the importance of environmental risk prevention actions, such as remediation in areas where toxic agents are detected, prevention of hydrogeological instability, maintenance of infrastructures and a strengthening of the health service.

Assuming a scenario of a sharp rise in temperature, an estimate made by the European Commission forecasts a significant drop in GDP. The Commission has tried to calculate the monetary value of a hypothetical failure to adapt: in 2050 the total amount of economic, social and environmental costs would be around €250bn per year for the European Union. 

Through careful analysis and targeted action, countries are called upon to try to predict the impact of climate change on their territories. This implies close co-operation between institutions, the third sector and scientific research. But that is not all. In addition to general intervention, it will also be necessary for each productive reality and each territory to create and implement adaptive strategies aimed not only at minimizing environmental repercussions, but also fallout in the areas of health and employment.

The European Commission's 2018 report clearly shows that climate-related damage will not be distributed evenly across the EU, but will vary according to the country's geography, infrastructure and population density. For humans, adapting also means rethinking all their core activities. It is clear that the world of work will also have to “rethink” itself and evolve, taking into account the indications provided by the Union and the risks associated with the regions. The economic weight, in terms of GDP, of these phenomena will also depend on the type of market and international trade (imports and exports) of each country. 

Working for workers

This is why some European and international organizations are also considering how to adapt the working system to climate change. In 2020, the International Labor Organization (ILO) published a report on the subject and, similarly, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) provided some guidelines on how to deal with the possible consequences of climate change in the labour market. In both documents, agriculture, tourism and transport are identified as particularly exposed sectors. As a general indication, the trade organizations suggest that companies’ health and safety policies should be reshaped to, first and foremost, protect the well-being of workers.

A rethink of policy in this area, also taking into account what has been learned during the pandemic, is essential. This is especially true for frail workers, those with chronic diseases and those who work outdoors. At the same time, however, it will be necessary to focus on other issues. Developing new professional skills and upskilling workers’ existing abilities will be necessary to respond to the inevitable professional changes, both in relation to job creation (especially thanks to technological and digital development) and in the event of a drop in productivity or employment in certain sectors. 

Knowing how to seize new business and job opportunities opened up by new environmental standards will help to ensure the survival of many jobs. Therefore, supporting research in the creation of green jobs and adapting young workers’ training to the new environmental, technological and social requirements could be a solution to facilitate their entry into (and subsequent growth within) the working world.

The next, necessary steps

In order to intervene in such a complex scenario, the ability of those involved to collaborate and activate partnerships between entities with different skills and backgrounds will be key. Adaptation policies should be approached in stratified ways, involving institutions, trade unions, companies, researchers, third sector bodies and citizens. In this way, in addition to creating an integrated vision by listening to different points of view, specific actions can be earmarked for a territory, taking its geographical, social and economic configuration into account. 

Institutions will have to accompany this fundamental step by encouraging dialogue between the various decision-making levels, funding the research world and monitoring the undertaken policies. Workers, on the other hand, will be able to experience change not as a bleak process, but as an opportunity to rethink the organization of their work and enrich their professionalism. We must make adaptation synonymous with intelligence and we must do it quickly. Only by working together and deploying creative solutions will it be possible to ensure our survival and, at the same time, reduce the impact of change on the weakest in our global society.