Our main challenge in responding positively to the impacts of climate and ecological breakdown is social and not technical. As the recent report from the House of Lord’s Environmental and Climate Change Committee (In our hands: behaviour change for climate and environmental goals) explained – “32% of emissions reduction up to 2024 requires individuals and households to adopt low carbon technologies, choose low carbon products and reduce carbon-intensive consumption.”
We know that we have to live within planetary boundaries if we are to have a future and that we owe a future to the young and future generations. Our responsibility to consider the ‘future’ inevitably impacts on our decision making today. We know that we must stop the increase in global heating below the 2°C agreed in Paris and that we absolutely cannot afford an increase of 2-3°C that we are currently heading towards. How can the necessary changes be welcomed as benefits and liberation and not as deprivation?
We first discussed this issue at Ecobuild in 2009 and ‘Behaviour change’ was the second most highly rated topic for discussion in a recent Futurebuild survey and we know that there is concern about ‘climate change’ amongst the general public.
FUTUREBUILD PROPOSITION No 5: We have the capacity to change the way we work and live our lives to create a fairer world within planetary boundaries.
Chair: Dr Viktoria Spaiser, Associate Professor in Sustainability Research, University of Leeds
How a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act for England will inspire change
Daniel Zeichner, MP, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Future Generations
Empowering young people to deliver change
Anna Burrows, Chief Executive, See It, Be It
With ”traditional economics” continuing to fail in the face of our multiple current challenges, what is the new economics teaching that is needed?
Dr Christian Spielmann, Reader of Economics Education, University of Bristol
Achieving change in the built environment
Dr Niamh Murtagh, Principal Research Fellow, Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL
