Climate Change: MPs say building demolitions must be reduced

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The number of buildings being knocked down must be reduced.

Developers have been encouraged to knock down old, poorly-insulated homes and replace them with newer, more energy efficient buildings.

Replacing buildings is often bad for the climate in the short and medium term according to engineers.

Lots of emissions are created to make materials for buildings, such as steel, cement, bricks, glass, aluminum and plastic.

The manufacture of two lots of construction materials is double emissions.

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee says the government may be leading to an increase in demolition.

If the UK is to meet its climate change targets, emissions created in the construction of buildings must be reduced.

The Chairman of the Committee, Philip Dunne, said that the buildings have a lot of locked-in carbon which is wasted each time they get knocked down to be rebuilt.

The ministers must address this immediately.

The report was welcomed by the government. The UK is a leader in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, according to a spokesman from the business department.

The issue is complex. The City of London has a lot of pressure to build tall because of the high value of land.

Many buildings can not be kept and converted.

Take the case of the Marks and Spencer Marble Arch store. Michael Gove, the minister controlling planning in the UK, recently agreed to review a plan to demolish it.

M&S insists that it is a green option to knock down amish-mash of poor, idling shopping space. The Property Director of the group agreed that climate change was an emergency.

The modern lower-carbon building will more than offset any emissions from the redevelopment.

The new building will be one of the top 10% best performing buildings in London.

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Within 17 years, the lower energy use in the new building would outweigh the emissions created by it.

The demolition and re-building would cause 40,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

He told me that if M&S really thought that climate change was an emergency, they wouldn't be creating extra emissions.

He pointed to comments in the magazine from a lead author of the United Nations climate change panel.

The data shows that the construction sector is lagging behind all other sectors since the Second World War.

The Commons committee wants developers to calculate emissions over the course of a building's lifespan. It wants the government to set targets for the buildings sector, which is responsible for 25% of the UK's emissions.

Adding extra storeys to existing buildings is one of the solutions being advocated by architects and engineers in the fight against demolition in the UK.

Other options are to recycle as much of the old building as possible, or to keep the facade, which needs a lot of carbon-intensive cement.

The pressure is on for a major new prize for architects to sit alongside the sterling prize, which some argue has featured flamboyant creations that showed too little care for the environment.

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