The Landscape Institute at COP26
The UK hosted the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021.
Why is COP26 significant?
Climate change is happening now. To avoid its worst effects, we must drastically cut carbon emissions by 2030.
COP26 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enact decisive, collaborative climate action. A watershed moment in human history, this summit will determine the scale of ambition and action to limit global warming and safeguard a sustainable future for people, place, and nature.
What must the UK deliver at COP26?
Delivering on COP26 means changing the way we design and build places. We need to make sweeping reforms to our energy, land, industrial, urban, and infrastructure systems.
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How can landscape professionals contribute?
Landscape professionals are integral to creating sustainable places. We design with nature, rather than against it, bring a unique, integrated response to the complex and interconnected issues of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Our sector is already tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. With more support and stronger regulation for greener development, policymakers can help us continue to deliver critical interventions:
- Reducing embodied carbon of outdoor spaces
- Implementing energy-saving measures such as living roofs and tree planting, and reducing food miles by integrating and maximising local food production in the landscape
- Enabling non-vehicular transport by designing for low-carbon travel routes
- Using sustainable urban drainage systems to adapt to increasing flooding and coastal erosion
- increasing urban heat resilience by installing green infrastructure, improving the thermal performance of buildings and reducing the ‘urban heat island’ effect
COP26 Blog
UK Government publishes COP26 Presidency Outcomes
Ahead of the UK ceding the Conference of the Parties (COP) Presidency to Egypt for COP27, which takes place in Sharm El-Sheikh from Sunday 6 to Friday 18 November - the government has published a new document detailing outcomes of the 2021 Glasgow summit and the UK's COP Presidency year
New LI briefing discusses COP26 outcomes and implications for landscape
At the COP26 Summit in Glasgow in November, world leaders met to determine the scale of ambition and action to limit global warming. A new LI policy briefing covers headline outcomes around the Glasgow Climate Pact, the UK’s Net Zero Strategy, global adaptation goals, and UK climate adaptation policy, with particular focus on implications for the landscape profession.
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Resources
COP26: Outcomes for the landscape profession
LI Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan
Greener recovery
This LI policy briefing covers headline outcomes from COP26 around the Glasgow Climate Pact, the UK’s Net Zero Strategy, global adaptation goals, and UK climate adaptation policy, with particular focus on implications for the landscape profession.
How we as an organisation will respond to the biodiversity and climate change emergencies: equip the profession to provide solutions; regulate and monitor the sector to encourage greater sustainability; advocate for measures to address the crises; and lead through sustainable business operations.
Delivering a sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Our landmark Autumn 2020 policy paper urging the UK Government to seize a ‘once-in-a generation chance’ to invest for a truly green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the public stimulus announcements made in July 2020, the LI describes the role the landscape sector can play in delivering a sustainable economic recovery, and what more the government must do to facilitate this.
Aiming for net-zero carbon
UK Climate Risk Assessment
Habitat by Design
The journal of the Landscape Institute, autumn 2019 – the climate emergency edition. A special edition of the Landscape journal focusing on the climate and biodiversity emergencies, following the LI’s climate and biodiversity emergency declaration in early 2019.
The UK Government publishes a Climate Change Risk Assessment every five years, setting out the risks and opportunities facing the UK from climate change. This website hosts all of the outputs for the third UK Climate Risk Independent Assessment (CCRA3), including a technical report, research projects, and summaries of advice.
What should the standards be for building with nature? How do we ensure that green and blue infrastructure are a ‘must have’, not just a ‘nice to have’? How do we implement Biodiversity Net Gain and nature-based solutions into design? Part of ACO’s Habitat Matters webinar series, and featuring LI President Jane Findlay, this webinar explores the answers to these questions and more.
Build Better Now
Urban landscapes and climate change
IFLA climate action commitment
The LI is supporting Build Better Now: A virtual exhibition and events series highlighting the built environment’s role in tackling the climate and ecological crises. Globally, buildings and construction are responsible for 38% of total energy-related CO2 emissions. Build Better Now highlights how the built environment can play its part in the journey to net zero.
The contribution of Landscape Architects to improve the quality of life. This report from the 11th Council of Europe conference on the European Landscape Convention highlights opportunities, problems and challenges in establishing a European viewpoint on the role that landscape and landscape architects can play in tackling the climate crisis.
Over 70,000 landscape architects around the world are taking action as global citizens to limit planetary warming to 1.5° C. IFLA’s Climate Action Commitment outline six key areas for the profession to take climate action.
CIC climate action plan
#BuiltEnvironmentDeclares
The LI is a signatory to this action plan from the Construction Industry Council (CIC), which will coordinate efforts within the built and natural environment professions in meeting the UK Government’s 2050 net zero emissions targets.
#BuiltEnvironmentDeclares Climate and Biodiversity Emergency: A global petition uniting all strands of construction and the built environment; both a public declaration of the environmental crises, and a commitment to take positive action.
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