What is COP26?

COP26 is the next annual UN climate change conference. This year will see the 26th iteration of the summit and it will be hosted by the UK in Glasgow.

COP stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’ and brings together world leaders to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

When is COP26?

The conference will officially begin on Sunday 31st October 2021 and will see more than 120 world leaders gather. This will be followed by complex negotiations between representatives, environment ministers and senior officials to determine the best way to collectively tackle climate change.

COP26 will conclude on Friday 12th November 2021.

The Paris Agreement and the importance of 1.5°C

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change that was adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris in 2015. Its aim is to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels.

Even an increase of 1.5°C will still result in rising sea levels, heatwaves, droughts, floods and other extreme weather events, however, they will be far less extreme than that of those associated with a rise of 2°C.

World temperatures are currently sitting at roughly 1.1°C – 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels with greenhouse gas emissions on an upward trend. In order to stay within the 1.5°C limit, global emissions will have to reduce by 7% a year for the rest of this decade.

How is this relevant to the built environment?

The built environment places huge strain and demand upon the world’s natural resources which accelerates climate change.

Buildings have a carbon problem. They account for nearly 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions as well as 50% of all extracted materials. By the year 2050, the world’s building stock will have doubled and almost 70% of the global population is projected to reside in urban areas.

For the first time in COP history, there will be a designated ‘built environment day’ on Thursday 11th November. A topic that is expected to be high on the agenda is net-zero buildings. These are buildings that do not contribute any net CO2 to the atmosphere by either embodied carbon or whilst the building is in use.

Twinview was specifically designed to help building owners move closer to Net Zero by providing real-time insights into a building’s performance. By understanding how our buildings are performing we can truly optimise their performance whilst reducing carbon and costs.

Twinview is a browser-based digital twin platform for the property sector connecting building systems’ data to a 3D model viewed on a single dashboard. Twinview becomes your first step to achieving Net Zero by providing continuous live data and an optimised building performance whilst reducing costs and improving the user experience. Book a demo today.