Transforming Education and Building Capacity to Deliver Climate Action in Cities.

Faced with the existential threat of climate change, achieving effective climate action has become a defining issue for built environment professionals around the world, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, recent analysis reveals that 50% of CO2 emissions from Commonwealth countries, for example, are attributable to 10% of its population (~250m) situated mainly in the industrialised north, while the other 50% is attributable to the remaining 90% of its population (~2.25bn) residing in the countries which are urbanising most rapidly, highlighting the urgent need for us to address these issues in both urbanised and urbanising countries simultaneously.

Against this backdrop, recent studies have evidenced a critical lack of capacity among built environment professionals in many of the countries which are urbanising most rapidly and are among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. This situation is compounded by a corresponding lack of educational and institutional capacity to grow the profession fast enough to make up the shortfall in those same countires, combined with a shortage of experienced teaching faculty, outdated curriculum, and a lack of mandatory continuing professional development necessary to maintain competencies among both faculty and practitioners alike. Similar studies have highlighted the urgency of embedding climate literacy into the education of built environment professionals, yet evidence suggests that many programmes still fail to adequately recognise or address our climate objectives, and that there remains no clear definition of what constitutes core competencies in this area.

The aim of this event will therefore be to bring together a range of trans-disciplinary partners in the built environment (such as the built environment professions and academia, including representatives from the UN-Habitat UNI network), to share their recent work and consider how, by working together, we can accelerate climate action in cities by transforming the education of built environment professionals worldwide.

The event will build on the momentum created by the recent Buildings and Climate Global Forum hosted jointly by the French Government and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction and will consider the upcoming IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, and consider how education, knowledge sharing and capacity building can support his process.