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SMART CITIES 093“ THE WORLD GBC HAS COMMITTED TO REDUCING 84 GIGATONNES OF C02 - THE EQUIVALENT OF NOT BUILDING 22,000 COAL POWERED PLANTS ”On Earth Day in April this year, in the largest one-day signing of any global deal the heads of state and politicians from over 170 countries gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to officially approve the Paris Agreement. This was significant because it could help to bring the agreement forged in December into effect much earlier than 2020 as had originally been intended. And five months on from Paris, the green building movement is making substantial and promising progress on its own commitments to curb emissions from buildings.The April signing of the Agreement will continue the momentum towards limiting global temperature rises to 2 degrees – which the international community broadly recognises as the threshold beyond which the effects of climate change will be catastrophic for life on our planet – and will provide a major boost to our efforts to go further in reaching 1.5 degrees.There is, of course, real urgency behind both these targets. Not only was 2015 the hottest year since records began back in 1850, smashing the previous marker set in 2014, but scientists – usually reluctant to single out specific months – recently announced that March 2016 was the warmest month on record. It surpassed the previous high set just four weeks earlier in February 2016, when two climate experts noted that the world is “hurtling at a frightening pace” towards 2 degrees of warming.Yet despite these worrying figures, there is plenty of room for optimism. On Buildings Day in Paris – the first time a whole day had been dedicated to the role that buildings can play in tackling climate change at any UN negotiations – the World Green Building Council committed to reducing 84 gigatonnes of C02. The International Energy Agency tells us that this figure – the equivalent of not building 22,000 coal powered plants – can make the difference between a catastrophic 6 degrees of global warming and a more manageable 2 degrees. In order to achieve this goal, we committed to leading a market transformation – together with our 75-member Green Building Councils (GBCs) and their 27,000 corporate members – to drive net zero new buildings and the major refurbishment of our existing building stock. And working collaboratively with our GBCs and their members and major national governments, we have taken significant steps towards these goals since Paris. Our Net Zero project is supporting GBCs in their efforts towards Net Zero, and championing those who are leading. At COP21, the Green Building Council of Australia committed to introducing a Net Zero certification, and have been moving fast ever since to get this to market, partnering with both federal and state governments to ensure that it is able to actually certify carbon neutral buildings and thoroughly engaging their market and members on the specifics of this certification programme, which will operate like their market-leading Green Star programme. Inspired by Australia, nine other GBCs are now working with us on our global project to accelerate Net Zero in their own markets. WorldGBC will work with Architecture 2030, and other partners, on a number of technical aspects, and ultimately aim to involve many more of our GBCs in this ambitious programme by COP22.We are also making good on our commitment to address the massive challenge that is renovating our existing building stock. We are starting in Europe where 35 per cent of buildings are over 50 years old, and are badly in need of energy efficiency improvements. In March 2016, 13 GBCs in Europe launched BUILD UPON, the world’s largest collaborative project on building renovation. Funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 project, these Photo Credit: Ronald Tilleman