COP must reverse rising pessimism over building sector decarbonisation, new study argues

People installing a living roof in 2012 Credit: Brian (Ziggy) Liloi. CC license via Flikr Social media engagement with climate policy events is vital to reducing building emissions and ensuring environmental justice, research led by Cambridge suggests To build for tomorrow fairly, global climate action has to incorporate and empower diverse public voices Ramit Debnath Negativity on Twitter about decarbonising the built environment has increased by around a third since 2014, according to a new analysis of more than 250,000 tweets featuring #emissions and #building between 2009 and 2021. The pessimistic trend has followed the launch of major climate action reports. The study, published in Nature Scientific Reports , reveals that expressions of -fear- in Twitter dialogue increased by around 60% following the launch of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change in 2015. The researchers, from Cambridge, Boston, Sussex and Aarhus Universities and Caltech, also found that -sadness- increased by around 30% following the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming 1.5?C in November 2019; while debate in November 2020 over lobbying of builders and utility companies over non-compliance with new building codes in the US triggered a spike in -anger-. Mapping tweets that caused spikes in emotional engagement revealed that public concerns triangulated around inaction towards emission reduction, the fairness of carbon tax, the politicisation of building codes (distinctively seen for the US) and concerns over environmental degradation.