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THE CYCLE – REDUCE
KICK THE HABIT
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a heat exchanger or a heat pump (depending on the time of year) to supply
an entire residential area with space heating and hot water. The energy yield
produced by drawing heat from the sea is 1 100 per cent, and that in turn
results in a 50 per cent reduction in CO
2
emissions. Users pay no more for
this system than for a conventional one.
Engaging others
There are other ways of saving energy. The city council of Freiburg in Ger-
many permits the construction only of low energy buildings on municipal
land, and all new buildings must meet low energy specifications. Low en-
ergy housing uses solar power passively as well as actively. Besides solar
panels and collectors on the roof, which provide electricity and hot water,
many passive features of the houses use solar energy for regulating room
temperature. Freiburg’s solar policy embraces the entire city. Various com-
panies and public facilities make their roofs available for solar panels, in
which the people of Freiburg can buy shares. They are paid for the power
sold to the municipal electricity scheme.
The British town of Stretton is providing its citizens with climate change
classes to show the 5 000 households how they can reduce their climate
footprint. The classes are based on the idea of a slimming club. A computer
programme will calculate how much GHG emissions each household is
responsible for and then suggest ways of reducing that weight with partici-
pants invited back later for an emissions “weigh-in”. They will learn how
high their emissions are through a computer programme which will also
suggest ways of reducing that “weight”.
Joining forces
C40 (
www.c40cities.org) is a group of the world’s largest cities, all of
them committed to tackling climate change. Cities are central to the task,
particularly as they bear a disproportionate responsibility for causing the
problem. Cities consume 75 per cent of the world’s energy and produce
80 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions. One idea promoted by C40
is the potential of cities to do more together than they can on their own.
Pooling their buying power can bring down the prices of energy-saving
products and speed the development and uptake of new energy-saving