CIBSE President Terry Wyatt was in no mood to mince his words when opening the joint CIBSE/ASHRAE conference in Edinburgh.
"I wouldn't be doing my job if I stood here today and just made a few bland statements. The storm is coming." That was the stark message from Terry Wyatt as he warned that climate change is a real issue which must be tackled now. The hot summer of 2003 was a wake up call. “We are living in a fools’ paradise if we simply say that the weather is getting better in summers! In a few months’ time there will be storms and floods – it’s waiting to hit us. That’s the simple message to get across.”

Wyatt warned that because the UK hasn’t experienced the full effects of climate change, we have not done enough to prepare for it, or to mitigate it. But the President said that this is a long-term issue. “This is the calm before the storm. The message I’m going to open this conference with is that sustainability isn’t just a trend.”

Wyatt strongly emphasised the responsibility of CIBSE members: “The business of climate change is important to us in construction because buildings are weapons of mass destruction. They are the major source of carbon, so the solution has to come from us. We know what’s needed and we know how to go about it.”

But Wyatt added that government must play its part. He had four key challenges for government. The first is to make the 2050 goal of 60% carbon reduction a real commitment. “We need to do this in order to win and keep long-term investment, otherwise investors will start withdrawing their cash from projects before 2020.”

He also said that energy prices must reflect the true environmental cost of using fossil fuels. “Cheap energy has been government mantra for 40 years in this country. This needs to change to more realistic pricing for industry. We need to pay for the damage caused by fossil fuels and price these energy sources accordingly”.

Government must take the lead in all its own construction, said Wyatt. “Schools would be a good start. We could educate the next generation about sustainability.”

The President’s final message was that all this needs to be done as quickly as possible if we have any hope of reaching goals set out in the government’s own energy White Paper.

Source

Building Sustainable Design