Climate Migration | Tag

How Amsterdam Uses the Doughnut Economics Model to Create a Balanced Strategy for Both the People and the Environment

April 26

In 2020, in the midst of the first wave of lockdowns due to the pandemic, the municipality of Amsterdam announced its strategy for recovering from this crisis by embracing the concept of the “Doughnut Economy.” The model is developed by British economist Kate Raworth and popularized through her book, “Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist”, released in 2017. Here, she argues that the true purpose of economics does not have to equal growth. Instead, the aim is to find a sweet spot, a way to balance the need to provide everyone with what they need to live a good life, a “social foundation” while limiting our impact on the environment, “the environmental ceiling.” With the help of Raworth, Amsterdam has downscaled this approach to the size of a city. The model is now used to inform city-wide strategies and developments in support of this overarching idea: providing a good quality of life for all without putting additional pressure on the planet. Other cities are following this example.

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SOM Reveals Design for a Net-Zero Campus on Governors Island, New York City

April 25, 2023

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have been selected to design the New York Climate Exchange in partnership with Stony Brook University, a public research institute in New York. The new net-zero campus, located on Governors Island, New York, is planned to serve as an anchor institution for the development of new climate solutions. As a first-of-its-kind international center, “The Exchange” will also act as a regional hub for the green economy.

Earth Day 2023: Cities Address Climate Challenges Through Legislation, Civic Initiatives, and Innovative Engineering Systems

April 24, 2023

Every year since its establishment in 1970, Earth Day aims to bring into focus not only the increasingly threatening effects of climate change but also highlight the effective measures and adaptation efforts that can improve the quality of our environment. This year’s event comes after a report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in March, which presented another warning on the magnitude of changes produced by human-induced global warming and its impact on people and ecosystems. The same report does offer some hopeful prospects as well, showing that adaptation measures can build resilience, but those urgent systemwide transformations are needed to secure a net-zero future. In response to these findings, the 2023 Earth Day is focused on the theme of “Investing in Our Planet,” as an encouragement for governments, institutions, businesses, and civil society to accelerate the change. Read on to discover several citywide initiatives aligned with these objectives of building resilience and a more sustainable future through legislation, civic involvement, and innovative systems.

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During COP27, the Necessity to Achieve Net Zero Comes into Sharp Focus

November 08, 2022

Starting on November 6, world leaders are gathering in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. The name stands for the 27^th conference of parties, an almost annual event started under the 1992 UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). The purpose of these conferences is to ensure that counties around the world are committed to taking action to avoid dangerous climate change and find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way. The effectiveness of these meetings varied throughout the years, with some successful initiatives, like the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty adopted by 196 Parties with the goal of limiting global warming below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.

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Contested Territory: The Climate Crisis and Land Ownership

November 08, 2021

Architecture, by its very definition, involves the construction of structures. Structures that are meant to serve as spaces for work, living, religious devotion, amongst many other purposes. Architectural projects and interventions, however, need land – and it is this intrinsic relationship, between land and architecture, that has massive ramifications not only regarding reducing carbon emissions but more importantly in forming an equitable future rooted in climate justice.

The Cost of Climate Change: Who is Really Protected by Urban Mitigation Efforts?

September 26, 2021

The impact that the climate crisis has had on the globe over the last decade is a critical influence on how architects and urban planners design future cities. It’s clear that both at an individual and corporate level, it’s important to take action and protect the earth before the negative impacts change our familiar environments forever- and time is running out fast. When it comes to creating ways to save our cities from “the next big one”, whether it be a hurricane, flood, snowstorm, or fire, the way that we design the preventative infrastructure neglects a significant number of people. Climate change doesn’t just impact the wealthiest places in the world, it actually has greater effects on the most impoverished.

Environmental Inequalities: Different Levels of Climate Risks and an Uneven Green Transition

September 20, 2021

Since the 2015 Paris agreement, mitigating climate change has been established as a common, world-encompassing goal; however, both the impacts of the climate crisis and the actions currently being taken vary widely across the globe. At the moment, the most prominent cities are outpacing governments in addressing the climate crisis and fostering a green transition, but their actions are counteracted by inaction and an increase in carbon emissions elsewhere. Moreover, the vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity to different levels of climate disruptions vary across nations. Discussing environmental inequalities through the lens of climate risks and mitigation actions, the following highlights the need for a global coordinated and transdisciplinary effort in addressing the climate crisis.

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Stay, Fight, or Flee: Considering Climate Migration

October 30, 2020

This article was originally published on Common Edge as "Considering Climate Migration".

Over the past week, I’ve seen at least two large mainstream press articles on climate migration, and as more people seem to be tossing around their next move locale—something between North Dakota and anywhere else with the word “north” it. Often, in a simplified, single-issue flattening of the full-range of shifts happening around us.

Climate Migration: The Latest Architecture and News