Being one of the select organizations marked by the UN, ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) formally participated in the Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26) as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and an official COP observer.
It sounds nice to note that more than 60 of the largest and most influential international architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, planning and construction firms, along with two dozen organizations representing over one million building industry professionals worldwide, issued a Communiqué to government leaders headed to COP26 challenging them to step up their emissions reduction targets for the built environment. The firms and organizations are signatories of the 1.50C COP26 Communiqué — an open letter to sovereign governments demonstrating the firms’ and organizations’ commitment to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.50C carbon budget and demanding governments do the same.
However, the question is how much of true will is there under all these formalities and big announcements? The Paris Agreement is an international treaty signed by almost all countries in the world at COP21 in Paris in 2015. However, a giant country like USA delayed the process, of course in the recent past their new government has taken interest in this serious matter. Even those who signed and supported the Paris Agreement, most of them could not do much in the last around six years. So, we have already lost quite a long time – and still now many parties are in the stage of planning for the future.
According to ASHRAE Treasurer Ginger Scoggins, “ASHRAE’s flagship Energy Conservation Standard 90.1 is the benchmark for commercial building energy codes in the United States and has been a key basis for codes and standards around the world for more than 45 years, reducing energy consumption by 50%, yet only 38 countries have specifically named building standards and codes in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).”
So, the situation does not need any additional explanation. Although, ASHRAE is trying its best to help policy makers and the buildings industry around the world transform, the success depends on each partys’ sincere and timely translation of wills into action.
Pravita Iyer
Publisher & Director
