RIBA joins international Climate Emergency Declaration

2019-07-03T14:50:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has agreed to join a global declaration acknowledging the existence of an environmental and climate emergency.

In recent months, New York City, the Vatican, the city of Vancouver, and the government of Ireland, among some 700 additional jurisdictions and governments, have joined the call for "an immediate emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate" around the world.

In a statement announcing the declaration, RIBA President Ben Derbyshire said, “The climate emergency is the biggest challenge facing our planet and our profession," adding, "The implementation of a five-year action plan we have committed to today will ensure we are able to benchmark change and evaluate the actions that make most impact.”

RIBA's announcement comes as the organization works to implement its Ethics and Sustainable Development Commission action plan, a framework that aims to support the United Nations's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The A...

11 Reasons the UN Should Make Cities the Focus of Its Forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals

2014-04-17T13:44:00-04:00

Last week I attended the seventh World Urban Forum in Medellín, Colombia, where more than 20,000 city leaders, urbanists, and planners from more than 160 countries met to discuss the future of cities across the globe. [...] Unfortunately, a number of important countries, the U.S. and Canada among them, remain worryingly undecided about joining this widespread call for a city-specific SDG from countries as diverse as Germany, Colombia, and Ghana.

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RIBA joins international Climate Emergency Declaration

11 Reasons the UN Should Make Cities the Focus of Its Forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals