02.12.2020
This is the first of two articles reflecting on 2020, a time not only of global pandemic but of wildfires, flooding and an unprecedented hurricane season.
As we begin 2021, we reflect on 2020, a time not only of global pandemic but of wildfires, flooding and an unprecedented hurricane season. Navigating these challenges has forced many professions and industries to reflect on their role in creating a safe, prosperous and environmentally sustainable future that serves people above all else. Here I discuss the need for a more resilient and regenerative approach to our built environment through an Australian lens, but it is applicable for all countries and cities.
Meteorologists recently marked 2020 as the joint hottest year, along with 2016, in recorded history. As Australia moves into the middle of its summer cautious about what impacts its climate will have, I’ll also look at the need for nations to prepare their town and cities, and indeed people for resilience against the future likely impacts of climate change. This is the first of a two-part series.
In 2019 Australia experienced its hottest and driest year on record [1]. Hot and dry weather in 2019 certainly did not help mitigate the bushfire season. Such weather will become the “new normal”. South-eastern Australia is predicted to experience an extra 20 to 30 days per year of fire conditions rated as “severe” or worse on the McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index[2]. By March 2020 bushfires had burnt almost 19 million hectares, destroyed over 3,000 houses, and took the lives of 33 people and over a billion animals[3]. Other impacts included worsening air quality from smoke polluting not just adjacent conurbations but across continents. The full extent of the socio-economic impacts is yet to be fully understood.
The hot dry summer of 2019 was followed in February 2020 with severe flooding in eastern Australia, specifically Queensland and New South Wales. The impact of torrential rain gave relief against the forest fires but caused havoc. According to news media, Sydney experienced its heaviest rainfall in 30 years, coupled with gale-force winds. More than 100,000 people lost electric power, and citizens of several areas of New South Wales were evacuated.
Around the same time that the flooding waned, coronavirus infections rose, and Australia’s economy and its borders locked down.
Since those natural disasters in Australia, there have been major fires and an increased frequency of hurricanes in the USA, where large portions of many states have been badly affected. Elsewhere, fires raged in Siberia, Argentina and Brazil. Whilst some parts of the world were on fire, others were suffering from devasting floods. Noticeably in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and South Sudan[4].
Given the likelihood of extreme weather events happening again and future virus outbreaks how do we best restore a prosperous Australia, or indeed better prepare vulnerable communities in less developed countries? The political quick fix is to get the economic recovery as quickly as possible. This needs careful consideration.
Back in the noughties, the American economist Bill McKibben pointed out in his book Deep Economy[5] that we have created some issues with our pursuit of economic growth. Since the 1960s, even with blips like the global financial crash, there has typically been unparalleled economic growth, and yet despite this society has not benefitted. Social inequality has widened. We use more resources than our planet can replenish, placing stress on our planetary boundaries[6] and creating pollution. Furthermore, less obvious but even more basic, all the evidence suggests that this growth is no longer making us happy. So, what really is the point of growth?
I think this is a poignant point that many nations need to consider. For example, is Australia finally at a crossroads whereby it needs to consider how it can prosper without it being fuelled by fossil fuel dependent growth, and simply recreate the past leaving it vulnerable to future threats? Interestingly, America may hold some valuable lessons for Australia. There lie good examples of a clean tech boom with investment in wind farms, solar plants and battery systems even in traditional oil states[7]. Surely, Australia can wean itself of coal and create a viable renewable energy sector, too.
Prosperity is about things going well for us in accordance with our hopes and aspirations. “How's life?” we ask each other. We have a fascination for each other’s wellbeing. There is a sense too in which individual prosperity is curtailed in the presence of social calamity. That things are going well for me is of little consolation if my family, my friends and my community are all in dire straits. I am sure this sounds familiar to those who have family and friends in any community effected by the Covid-19 pandemic, fires and flooding, or indeed any life changing event. Individual prosperity and the prosperity of those around us are inter-twinned. This shared concern translates itself into a vision of human progress. Typically, prosperity speaks of the elimination of things we don’t like to see, such as hunger, homelessness, poverty and injustice, and it also speaks hopes for a secure and peaceful world. Today the fear of viral infections as well as extreme weather events can be added to the list. We are now hopeful of being resilient to climate change and safe from its future impacts. We are hopeful we have access to water – a basic essential and yet rarer by the year. We are also hopeful that today’s Covid-19 vaccines will cope with virus mutations, and that we can protect the most vulnerable as quickly as possible to avert further deaths. A decade ago, these fears and hopes would not have been an issue for people.
I believe we need to acknowledge that we have lost that sense of shared prosperity. Nations and their citizens need to consider their future prosperity and how best to reconcile aspirations for a good life with the constraints of the planet and the changes to the forces that act upon us that we already have sought to influence. It should be viewed as an opportunity to redesign and build a better economy and way of life. Economics appear to share a similar view, indeed the World Economic Forum said that tackling the nature crisis (= the climate and biodiversity crisis) could create 400 million jobs and $10 trillion in business value each year by 2030 while the current rate of destruction threatens half of global GDP[8]. Other work during the pandemic have cited the value of investment in clean technology and nature-based solutions to support economic recovery, mitigate carbon emissions and build resilience[9].
The same acknowledgment shown by economists is required from all professional sectors of our built environment recognising the need to adapt and provide resilience against these forces and manage resources in much more sustainable manner. It is heartening to see the solidarity now forming with professions making declarations about the climate and biodiversity emergency[10]. This is an important first step as we move from an age of irresponsibility to an age of restoration and regeneration. First, halting and restoring the balance that we have altered. and then working alongside nature and ecosystems to ensure co-evolution and full regeneration. But we need the support of politicians to assist in creating regenerative economies and to fund the changes needed to make the transition.
What governments cannot do is just restore their economies using the same approach as before – do we simply want to recreate more inequality, more pollution and become less happy as a result? Surely there must be a better way of doing things. I appreciate it is a deeply complex issue to attempt to solve and it needs a multi-disciplinary, holistic approach as well as political solutions. But given the significance of the built environment in terms of both resource use, it is responsible for just under 40% of the worlds’ greenhouse gas emissions, and in providing resilience to future climate change I will use my next article to look at how our urban and peri-urban environments need to be redesigned to restore the ecological imbalance we have.
I am minded by the fact that there will be no prosperity on a dead planet. Australia is at crossroads. It must use the current situation wisely to be a catalyst for positive change. Any manifesto for change should include the need for its towns and cities to mitigate against climate change, adapt to it - as its impacts are already in play - and regenerate to help restore the ecological balance and people’s prosperity in a fair and just way.
In the second part of this series, I will explore the solutions that architects and designers must consider to create prosperous, fair and climate resilient cities. Identifying the challenges we must confront is only the beginning!
[1] bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/ar18-19/
[2] newscientist.com/article/2229902-analy...
[3] A. Filkov et al. 2020. Impact of Australia's catastrophic 2019/20 bushfire season on communities and environment. Retrospective analysis and current trends. [Online] sciencedirect.com/science/article/.[Accessed 10 October 2020]
[4] floodlist.com [accessed 10 October 2020]
[5]http://billmckibben.com/deep-economy.html
[6] stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries
[7] Anon. Green Texas. Pages 40-41 in The Economist 14 March 2020
[8] WEF_The_Future_Of_Nature_And_Business_2020.pdf [accessed 4 November 2020]
[9] Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change? Zenghelis, D., with Hepburn, C., O’Callaghan, B., Stern, N. and Stiglitz, J.. May 2020. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 36(S1) academic.oup.com/oxrep/article/4 November 2020]
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