The Need for a Climate of Change
Image: Rebecca Jane McConnell
This article appeared in the print edition of Architecture Ireland (RIAI Journal) Issue 318 July/August 2021, page 25
For a coastal city built on soft ground, Belfast is remarkably nonchalant about climate change. In 2018, the Met Office’s UK Climate Projections model found that by the end of the century, sea levels in Belfast could rise by up to 94cm. Such a reality would permanently alter the city’s built environment, causing disruption to the docks, airport, and commercial core, exacerbated by storm surges overwhelming the River Lagan’s existing infrastructure. On the other extreme, summer months five degrees hotter, and 38% drier, will only compound the heat island effect in urban areas, and water shortages throughout the region.
Despite these predictions, Northern Ireland remains the only part of the United Kingdom without a dedicated Climate Act, and lags far behind the Republic of Ireland’s recent passage of climate legislation through the Dáil. Northern Ireland’s building regulations, which have not been amended since 2012, contain the most relaxed energy performance requirements of any region in the UK and Ireland. While embodied carbon in construction accounts for 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 70% of a building’s whole life carbon emissions, neither Northern Ireland’s building regulations, draft Climate Bill, or draft Energy Strategy contain any reference to measuring or regulating embodied carbon, nor substantive, proportionate attention to the impact of construction or building performance on the environment. As Northern Ireland stalls, several European countries have already enshrined embodied carbon into law, while several industry groups in England are lobbying for the inclusion of a Part Z: Whole Life Carbon addition to England’s building regulations.
Despite a growing international consensus that “the greenest building is the one that is already built”, Belfast’s past and present is shaped by an attitude that favours demolition over adaption, regardless of the social or environmental impacts. One could argue that the biggest scar left on Belfast from the 1980s was not from violence, but from the construction of a ring of concrete motorway choking the city centre, demolishing thousands of homes in favour of convenient car use. Today, twenty-one buildings in the city’s Cathedral Quarter are facing full or significant demolition to accommodate a £500 million redevelopment, despite established awareness of the impact of demolition and new construction on the climate. Once-active streets currently sit abandoned as the city awaits the arrival of the development, whose generic, transplanted architecture echoes its generic, transplanted “Tribeca Belfast” branding.
Without well-crafted legislation governing the built environment, Belfast will continue to suffer from short-sighted, irresponsible development at the expense of both its urban fabric, and the climate. While Belfast’s architects can affect a degree of environmental awareness during the feasibility, design, and construction process, the absence of progressive policy from lawmakers places designers on the back foot before a single line is drawn. Real change will require more than the tired platitudes of architecture firms marketing their sustainability ethos, or architecture schools declaring climate emergencies. Real change requires active, persistent, resolute lobbying of Stormont to deliver the environmental mandates already being enshrined in planning and construction laws throughout the UK and Europe. Whether through individual initiatives, or grassroots collective movements such as the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) Northern Ireland, there is a necessity for architects in Belfast to engage in meaningful reform of the city’s legislative landscape, championing a built environment that emphasises circularity, cohesion, and resilience.
