Is global warming hot air?

As global temperatures fail to warm, is the heat going out of climate change?

If the attendance at Hilary Benn’s talk at RIBA last week was anything to go by, the answer is yes.

Although government ministers are a rare enough sight at Portland Place, the hall was far from packed. Maybe there were more pressing talks going on in London last Tuesday evening, but given that the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs was invited to summarise the dire climate predictions facing the UK, and that the Copenhagen summit on climate change is less than a month away, you can’t help wonder what they might be.

But there could be another reason why there were empty seats, and that’s because of a weariness with a government that trots out the same line year after year — that climate change is predominantly man made — without allowing this claim to be challenged, despite the growing wealth of scientific evidence that it is not.

In fact, you’d be forgiven for not knowing there is a debate because it’s certainly discouraged by the RIBA, whose successive presidents have said that fighting climate change is the biggest challenge facing the profession.

While there’s no argument that natural resources such as water need to be conserved and low-energy buildings make sense, the scientific evidence has now shifted enough to warrant a more questioning position on climate change.

Do members agree? The RIBA line is that council signed up to cut CO2 emissions a long time ago. But, as well as inviting speakers like Benn, who try and cultivate a sense of doom — that unless we act now we’re all finished — the RIBA is also determined to lick the membership into shape: architects who refuse to sign an “environment policy” can no longer register as a chartered practice.

But it is healthy to question what is being proposed at Copenhagen and whether architects are fully behind a treaty that will give a new governing body powers to limit manufacturing, travel, energy production and anything else that emits carbon, including building.

There are no easy answers but opening up the debate to a range of voices would not only help fill the empty seats at RIBA, it would show that the profession can take a lead rather than slavishly follow the party line.

The big firms get creative

Some of the big commercial firms are waving chequebooks at what they call “design-led” architects, which suggests how far they have drifted away from architecture to other more lucrative ways of making money.

Now they want to be recognised not simply for having multiple offices across the Middle East or hoovering up PFI projects — they think by hiring staff from well-known practices they, too, can become known as “design led and innovative”.

Of course, rebranding your business is cheaper in a recession when there’s also a chance to clear out the deadwood. But if Atkins, Capita or any other firm really want to change their image, they should hire some of the talented architecture graduates who have pushed unemployment figures to an all-time high. That really would be innovative.