• Bookstore

The ad in The New York Times seeks to demonstrate that the positive efforts government, business and individuals do make can only make a real difference without coal-fired power stations.

"Wal-Mart is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next seven years.  If every Wal-Mart Supercenter met this target...
The CO2 emissions from only one medum-sized coal-fired power plant in just one month of operation each year, would negate this entire effort."

We must stop burning coal or we don't make it
With global reserves of oil and natural gas being depleted and their prices increasing, coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful and supposedly cheap enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere. Although many believe that coal is necessary to meet our increasing energy needs, Mazria asserts that these needs can be met without coal.

At 450 ppm atmospheric CO2, scientists project dangerous climate change with potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise. We are currently at 385 ppm, and are increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at approximately 2 ppm annually. At this growth rate, we will reach 450 ppm in 2035.

Architecture 2030 is calling for an immediate moratorium on the 151 coal-fired power plants now under development in the United States, and the phasing out of the more than 600 US coal plants currently in operation. This puts an immediate cap on coal plant emissions while allowing enough time to retrain coal workers for healthier jobs.

"Coal is not cheap," Mazria emphasises. The Department of Labor and Social Security Administration, for example, have made $42.3 billion in Black Lung Program payouts since 1971.

Seventy-six percent of all electrical energy produced at coal plants is consumed by the Building Sector. The 2030 Challenge, officially launched by Architecture 2030 in January 2006, is a global initiative to reduce building energy use of new and renovated buildings by a minimum of 50 percent, which negates the need for new coal plants.

"Renovating to 50 percent allows you to build new buildings at 50 percent, flattening out the sector's CO2 emissions curve," says Mazria. By reducing the energy use of new buildings an additional 10 percent every five years until 2030, and by using renewable energy, we ultimately negate the need for existing coal plants.

In the ad in the New York Times, Architecture 2030 also debunks the belief that reducing Energy Intensity (energy consumption per GDP) by 1 percent will have an effect on CO2 emissions and global warming. The United States has reduced its Energy Intensity by 1.5 percent on average every year since 1980 while increasing its CO2 emissions by approx. 40 percent.

"By placing a moratorium on coal, we avert the worst consequences of climate change. If we begin now, we make it," says Mazria. "If we wait, even for a few years, this window of opportunity is lost."

Architecture 2030 is a non-profit organisation working to achieve a dramatic reduction in the global-warming-causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings by changing the way they are designed and constructed.