Heating And Climate Change Uk

Managing and implementing sustainability requires the commitment of all stakeholders and new ways of working, thinking and learning. [4]” The paper highlights the importance of a coordinated supply chain action in the construction sector and emphasizes the need for construction companies to train and invest in resource- efficient building methods and practices. This will manage the balance between stability and change [4].

Being environmentally friendly isn’t merely a trend. After thousands of years of using the earth’s resources, we have finally come to realize that we are destroying this beautiful gift we were honored with. Architects play an influential role in trying to preserve this gift by encouraging a multitude of strategies that can be more cost efficient in the long run, be more comfortable for its users, and most importantly, have a lower carbon footprint. Strategies can include drastic changes to heat and air systems, construction material selections, or even specific design details to the architecture of a building that would reduce the amount of energy it consumes.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we currently face. With the ever-increasing uptake in the usage of fossil fuels, and getting ever closer to reaching peak oil, it is becoming of increasing importance to reduce our consumption of these non-renewable resources. The United Kingdom (UK) has been set a target to reduce its CO2 output level by at least 80% by 2050, in comparison to a 1990 baseline (Climate change act (2008)). This is a great challenge set by the European Union (EU) that UK is legally obliged to commit to. A large proportion of this CO2 output can be attributed to the UK’s housing sector, which currently accounts for 27% of the UK’s total CO2 level (Davies, P. and Osmani, M. (2011)). Clearly,

Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire

In this investigation, I will be researching if climate change is happening, and if it is, how is it happening, how are we impacting on it, but most of all, I will be researching how will the UK affected by climate change. In the methodology, I will state how I researched and how I was able to do this investigation. In the main contents, I will be displaying the information and results I have researched, and will answer the questions that I have mentioned above. In the summary/conclusion section, I will give a big picture of what I have mentioned in the main contents, answer the questions simply. I will be adding diagrams, references and illustration here and there in this investigation.

The inefficient homes in the UK have catastrophic effects on global warming. The UK needs to become more energy efficient as at the moment it emits a large amount of greenhouse gases which risk dangerous climate change. The retrofitting of the brick three storey terraced town house is necessary in order to comply with the legislations set out by parliament in the UK Climate Change Act (2008) or if the house falls under the private rented sector it must comply with the Energy Act 2011.

Residential houses in the United Kingdom remain amongst the least energy efficient in Europe. Generally housing responsible for about 30.0% of all energy use in the UK. The figure for London was even is higher, approximately 37%. It is also within first 10 world's greatest producer of man-made carbon emissions, producing around 1.8% of the global total generated from fossil fuels in 2008. Climate Change Act 2008 set out provisions and a legally binding target for reducing UK carbon dioxide emission by at least 26 per cent by 2020 and at least 80 per cent by 2050. It sets out main actions should be taken by the UK regarding the issue and how reductions of the emissions should be delivered.

Changing the way energy in buildings is monitored, controlled and consumed can bring down CO2 emissions and reduce costs (Faucheux & Nicolaï, 2011) .

While it easy to only focus on the cost of the home, it is incredibly important to consider just want that house is doing to the environment. If we take a trip back to 1981, the average home used about 183 million British thermal units, also known as BTU. By 2012, the number rose to 188.7 million BTUs (DeSilver). As of

Humans today are using much more electricity than we need to in our houses and this is impacting our world more then we realise. Although electricity is a huge advantage to humans it has the complete opposite effects on our environment. By using more electricity, we are using more of the earth’s resources and if we keep going down this road then we are going to run out. The solution for this mass overuse of energy is to build houses which are more energy efficient. Features like LED lightbulbs, insulating and even positioning your house in the correct position for natural airflow instead of using air conditioning are all ways we can help improve this problem.

Over the last decades, the Earth’s human population has been growing exponentially and now lies above 7 billion people. With such an immense number of humans roaming around the Earth, throughout time, urbanization will occur expanding the size of many cities. As a rural area expands so does the amount of asphalt and concrete buildings within the city. This is how an urban heat island occurs. An urban heat island poses many serious threats as it raises the temperature significantly at night and can cause many fatal health risks during the day. Although urban heat islands seem drastic, there remains ways that could potentially reduce the effects. Minimizing the effect of the urban heat island can be accomplished by increasing the amount of vegetation, which includes trees and natural grass, around new parks and recreational facilities.

Global warming refers to the persistent rise of air and sea temperatures. Global temperatures in the 20th century have increased by 0.8 °C (Weart, 2003). There has been a substantial rise of temperatures in the last few decades raising major concerns globally. If the current trends persist, it may be difficult for the earth to sustain life in the next 200 years. Global warming emanates from both human and natural causes. The current state of global warming is mostly related to human causes, as natural causes are rare. Natural causes include volcanic eruptions, changes in solar output, and variation of the earth’s position altering its distance from the sun (Singer & Avery, 2007). Volcanic eruptions do not always cause global warming. In most cases, eruptions cause a cooling effect in the surrounding areas. A volcanic eruption produces and injects sulfate aerosols, as well as, SO2 into the atmosphere. The reaction of these sulphur compounds leads to the formation of gaseous sulfuric acid layer covering the earth’s surface. This acid layers hinders penetration of solar energy. Major concerns should be on human activities that cause global warming since they can be controlled. According to various researches on global warming, production of greenhouse gasses is the major cause of global warming. Greenhouse gasses include water vapor, methane (CH4) carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide (N2O). These gasses absorb heat; thus, causing global warming. Methane

Why it is not the caused by the emission of carbon Dioxide which causes the global climatic change.

4.1 Products & appliances: Equipments and appliances have been targeted by the most common measure of labelling and MEPS which is one of the cost effective way to penetrate more and more energy efficient appliances in the market. Despite lot of efforts there is still lot of potential in the existing building sector to make it more energy efficient and sustainable buildings. IPCC estimates that, by 2022, carbon-di-oxide emission from using energy efficient products and appliances in the buildings can help to reduce by 29% at no major cost (Levine, M., D. Ürge-Vorsatz, K. Blok, L. Geng, D. Harvey, S. Lang, G. Levermore, A. Mongameli Mehlwana, S. Mirasgedis, A. Novikova, J. Rilling, H. Yoshino 2007). Now, the need of the New Zealand government is to focus on the package of policies i.e. mandatory public procurement to improve the efficiency of this sector which requires strong leadership and demonstration by the government (Kelly 2012) . The mandatory procurement program need to be aligned with the MEPS as wells star rating programs to ensure the purchasing of efficient products in businesses and governments (OECD 2008). Suppliers, local and central government, and other stakeholders also need to be aligned to encourage efficient procurement in different sectors of the economy. New Zealand Businesses and governments which have already introduced efficient procurement, reported between 8% to 30% improvements than the baseline and now this needs to be replicated for all the

“North American homes, offices and other buildings contribute an estimated 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year—more than one third of the continent 's greenhouse gas pollution output” (Biello). Global warming is a worldwide issue that is thought to be one of the most severe problems around the globe. Pollution in the atmosphere is one of the main causes of global warming. This pollution starts to build up and destroy the ozone layer causing an increase in the overall temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere (Lee). There are simple methods that can be followed to help decrease global warming. Green building is a building process that is used to make buildings more environmental-friendly. This process is used throughout the whole building life cycle, which includes everything from making the design of the building up to the demolition of the building. Cooperation of all the people involved in the building process is very important throughout each stage in the project. This process can lead to a much better and easier way to help the global warming issue throughout the world. Many people may oppose to green building because of the higher cost for new equipment and materials that are environmental-friendly (Rajendran).