A report commissioned by international union coalition Industrial examines the geopolitics of fossil fuel producing countries (mainly, the United States, China, Europe and Russia) and the investments and performance of the Oil Majors (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Total, as well as nationally-owned PetroChina, Gazprom and Equinor). Energy transition, national strategies, and oil companies: what are the impacts for workers? was published in November 2020, with the research updated to reflect the impacts of Covid-19.
In addition to a thorough examination of state and corporate actions, the report asked union representatives from four oil companies about how workers understand the energy transformation and its impact on their own jobs, and whether the concept of Just Transition has become part of their union’s agenda.
Some highlights of the responses:
“the union members interviewed showed little knowledge about either the risks that the current transition process can generate for the industrial employee, or about the union discussion that seeks to equate the concern with the decarbonisation of the economy with the notions of equity and social justice. In some cases, even the term “Just Transition” was not known to respondents.”
Their lack of knowledge regarding the Just Transition can be justified by the fact that they do not believe that there will be any significant change in the energy mix of these companies.
Regarding information about energy transitions within the companies, “Managers are included, but the bottom of the work chain is not”
Lacking corporate policies or support, some employees feel compelled to take responsibility for their own re-training
Echoing results of a similar survey of North Sea oil workers in the summer of 2020, published in Offshore: Oil and gas workers’ views on industry conditions and the energy transition, one European respondent is quoted saying: “In the end, everyone is looking for job security, good wages and healthy conditions. It doesn’t matter so much if the job is in another area, as long as it is in good working conditions”.
The researchers conclude that: “Far from being just a statement of how disconnected workers are from environmental issues, these researches reveal a window of opportunity for union movements to act in a better communication strategy with their union members, drawing their attention to the climate issue and transforming their hopes for job stability and better working conditions into an ecologically sustainable political agenda.”
The report was commissioned by Industrial and conducted by the Institute of Strategic Studies of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (Ineep), a research organization created by Brazil’s United Federation of Oil and Gas Workers (FUP).
Posted on January 15, 2021 by Manila Standard is about how Smart cities, e-governance help urban resilience and how this latter is visualised as from the Philippines.
Smart Cities are fast becoming one of the world’s most critical industries as more countries invest in technologies to improve the delivery of government service.
Smart cities, e-governance help urban resilience By 2025, smart city development worldwide is estimated to create business opportunities worth $2.46 trillion.
In its simplest essence, a smart city is all about providing people a better quality of life by using different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect data. The insights gained from that data are utilized to manage assets, resources, and even services efficiently, helping governments to improve their operations across the city. It also enables e-governance or the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in all the processes to enhance the government’s ability to address the needs of the public.
By 2025, smart city development worldwide is estimated to create business opportunities worth $2.46 trillion, as revealed by a report released by tech research firm Frost and Sullivan. This trend is driven by the uncertainties of the post-pandemic work, which will compel cities to focus more on developing collaborative, data-driven infrastructure to provide healthcare and public security, as well as resilience to natural disasters.
Laying the Groundwork
In the Philippines, the national government has been pushing the adoption of smart city technologies. For instance, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), being the country’s primary agency promoting the adoption of eGovernment Services (ICT-ES), has developed the E-Government Masterplan (EGMP) 2022.
This plan outlines DICT’s intent of developing the country’s e-government systems through the digital transformation of services, such as public health, education, and other programs that cut across the whole of government. By doing so, DICT aims to create a networked and collaborative environment for improved public service delivery.
Additionally, as the ongoing pandemic accelerates innovation, some local governments have laid their plans for their smart city initiatives, especially on e-governance. Baguio City, for instance, has recently announced its investments to transform into e-government using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and other web-based telecommunication technologies, such as crowd density monitoring and real-time weather prediction, to improve the delivery of public service.
Aside from Baguio, the New Clark City in Pampanga, Davao, Cebu, and Manila have also previously laid the groundwork to make their areas smarter through the adoption of e-governance technologies.
The need for the adoption
For Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, the digital transformation and e-governance initiatives of all the cities in the country, just like the other smart cities across the globe, provide an opportunity to make the entire Philippines more resilient challenges like the current public health crisis or natural calamities.
Last year, the country was identified as one of the most vulnerable to climate change by the Global Peace Index of the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) due to its high exposure to natural hazards, such as typhoons, landslides, floods, and droughts, as well as its heavy reliance to its climate-sensitive natural resources.
The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) also noted that more tropical cyclones are entering the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) than anywhere else in the world. Recently, the Philippines experienced five typhoons in a row—Quinta, Rolly, Siony, Tonyo, and Ulysses—which all made landfall in the country within at least a month. All these typhoons left trails of devastation, which include physical injuries, casualties, and damages to agriculture and other properties.
“Following this devastation, preparedness for typhoons and other calamities has never been more important, for instance, in getting necessary data where they can draw insights to efficiently conduct pre-evacuation of residents in flood-prone and vulnerable areas. And as IT becomes integral, government agencies must have a ready infrastructure in place to ensure that services go on unhampered and citizens have access to services they need,” said Jason Lim, country manager of Vertiv Philippines.
To help local governments in tackling these IT infrastructure challenges, Vertiv brings together cutting-edge E-Governance Solutions to ensure uninterrupted operations, optimal performance, and scalability of data centers, communication networks, and other critical IT facilities needed in creating smarter and more resilient cities.
To learn more about how Vertiv supports the continuity of today’s vital business and government applications, visit Vertiv.com.
Researchers have advanced understanding of how wireless charging roads might influence driver behaviour.
By applying statistical geometry to analysing urban road networks, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) researchers have developed city planning in a future where electric vehicles (EVs) dominate the car market.
“Our work is motivated by the global trend of moving towards green transportation and EVs,” says postdoc Mustafa Kishk.
“Efficient dynamic charging systems, such as wireless power transfer systems installed under roads, are being developed by researchers and technology companies around the world as a way to charge EVs while driving without the need to stop. In this context, there is a need to mathematically analyse the large-scale deployment of charging roads in metropolitan cities.”
Many factors come into play when charging roads are added to the urban road network. Drivers may seek out charging roads on their commute, which has implications for urban planning and traffic control. Meanwhile, the density of charging road installations in a city, and the likely time spent on and between the charging roads by commuters, could influence the size of batteries installed in EVs by car manufacturers.
Calculating the metrics that could be used to analyze a charging road network is very significant, as Kishk’s lab colleague, Duc Minh Nguyen, explains.
“Our main challenge is that the metrics used to evaluate the performance of dynamic charging deployment, such as the distance to the nearest charging road on a random trip, depend on the starting and ending points of each trip,” says Nguyen.
“To correctly capture those metrics, we had to explicitly list all possible situations, compute the metrics in each case and evaluate how likely it is for each situation to happen in reality. For this, we used an approach called stochastic geometry to model and analyze how these metrics are affected by factors such as the density of roads and the frequency of dynamic charging deployment.”
Applying this analysis to the Manhattan area of New York, which has a road density of one road every 63 meters, Kishk and Nguyen with research leader Mohamed-Slim Alouini determined that a driver would have an 80 percent chance of encountering a charging road after driving for 500 meters when wireless charging is installed on 20 percent of roads.
“This is the first study to incorporate stochastic geometry into the performance analysis of charging road deployment in metropolitan cities,” Kishk says. “It is an important step towards a better understanding of charging road deployment in metropolitan cities.”
Architecture Live! predicts that in 2021: Beginning anew – a joyful reimagining of our buildings as schools! as per SJK Architects professional experience. It is by Madhura Patil.
Write-up and Concept Storyboards by Vaishali Shankar
As an architect who has worked on educational buildings, I cringed at these completely closed boxes, but the openness of the education taught in them won and we enrolled our son in an IB school.-SJK Architects.
We were keen on an IB education for our child for the freedom in learning it offers. We loved it’s focus on a thorough understanding of a subject and analytical skills and not on rote memory, and the broad holistic range of subjects that it offers – one of the most open curriculums available today.
But as we scouted for schools and visited a handful, the irony of the centrally air-conditioned, closed, boxy buildings that IB schools have come to be synonymous with, was not lost on us. IB education is quite expensive and so with it comes an expectation for IB schools to have better infrastructure, one common interpretation for which is equating comfort to air-conditioning.
As an architect who has worked on educational buildings, I cringed at these completely closed boxes, but the openness of the education taught in them won and we enrolled our son in an IB school.
00_Introduction sketch 1
August 2020 has come and gone. This month had been eagerly anticipated by my family – it was the start of the new academic year and the first time that my son would start going to a ‘Big’ school! But we are still in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in semi lockdown state. With all kind of human contact being discouraged for the fear of contracting and spreading the infection, all schools are physically shut, and so the academic year started on- line. It feels a bit strange that the start of a child’s schooling is in a virtual environment.
Most teachers and schools have been exemplary in learning the ropes of on-line, remote teaching quickly, establishing systems and working very hard to come up with content that keeps kids engaged on-line. But while parents are happy to have schooling resume, most fret about the prolonged exposure to screens and the sense of isolation that the kids may feel.
The understanding that social skills and friendships are essential for mental well-being and key to learning, was never so acutely felt as it is now. And when normalcy does return, will the kids have adjusting issues, they wonder.
For now, these are just thoughts and worries – safety is paramount and social distancing our armour until Covid- 19 is vanquished.
But normalcy will return. And when it does, the favourite question doing rounds is – what will we take back from this strange period in our lives?
With thoughts of physical safety and mental health being top of mind, I and other colleagues turned to thinking about the type of buildings that would serve as thriving post-Covid19 schools in the metros.
Two great needs stand out-
1- To design buildings that do not encourage infections from spreading:
Research suggests that being outdoors or in well ventilated spaces can dilute ‘aerosols’ (or germs as we knew them in the pre-covid times!) enough to minimize tremendously the spread of any infection.
A building that is designed to work with climate, one that invites sunlight and wind through strategically located openings but rejects heat and rain, may be quite comfortable for at least a certain percentage of the year in a tropical country like ours (studies claim upto 80% of the time in all climatic zones in our country). So ensuring open spaces and natural cross-ventilation to the extent possible maybe the way to go!
And when absolutely not possible to achieve a comfortable environment without air-conditioning, alternative technologies like radiant cooling that do not circulate air for cooling or use of specialized filters that clean air in circulation could be employed to prevent air-borne infections from spreading.
2- To design buildings for human connections:
Post this isolation that children have been through, the attention would undoubtedly be towards providing environments that deepen human connections and restore or enrichen the social fabric of their little worlds.
Studies indicate that not only do friendships and social relationships strengthen children emotionally and turn them into well-rounded human beings, but also peer-to-peer sharing will most definitely accelerate learning. Such interactions with peers, often occurs outside the formal space of a classroom – so designing spaces for social interactions is a critical need.
It seems clear that the two responses that emerge– designing buildings with really good ventilation and ensuring spaces for social interactions, are simple yet wonderful principles of design for physical-emotional health and happiness that have been prevalent through all of historic and vernacular architecture, and ones that we at SJK Architects have applied to a variety of projects.
Here’s examining some of our urban projects, ranging from office buildings to residential homes, and spotlighting methodologies that helped accomplish these principles of health and happiness, ones that can easily be applied to post covid school buildings.
One: Use screens to draw wind into the building without gaining heat:
While the non-north faces of the building receive direct sunlight and are way warmer than the north, it may be necessary to open these up to invite the winds in for proper cross-ventilation. Drawing from the use of ‘jalis’ in vernacular and historic buildings, sun-shading devices such as louvers, fins or screens can be added to such non-north openings, ensuring that direct sun (and, therefore, heat) is blocked and not incident into the inner spaces, while the gaps in the ‘jalis’ can still allow wind in.
1_Nagpur House – Jali
Allowing the screens to be movable can give additional flexibility to open up completely in the winters or in cloudy weather, while leaving them shut when the sun is scorching bright.
4_Nagpur House – External Elevation
[Images 1, 2 and 3- Wooden jalis protect the bedrooms and living spaces of a Family Home at Nagpur, allowing for natural ventilation when possible, keeping the interiors cool, well shaded and additionally ensuring privacy.]
Two: Open up the North for drawing wind into the building and for social spaces:
The north face of the building receives the best shade (in our hemisphere) and is, therefore, the coolest! So, it makes sense to open up the north of the building. One can easily provide windows to draw wind into the building from the north. But, additionally, one can also step out into comfortable, well-shaded courtyards, balconies and other social spaces that can be carved out of the north face of the building. Providing these courtyards with props like amphitheater steps and benches can support interactions.
While designing in cities, one is ever conscious of ensuring that all available FSI is consumed leading to tall buildings with little or no open space available at ground level. So while a courtyard at ground level is often impossible, providing courtyards at higher levels is a useful strategy that can ensure a win-win.
[Image 4, 5 and 6- A north facing, shaded and vibrant courtyard at the 4th floor of a Commercial Building at Nagpur with an amphi-theatre and overlooking public passages, staircases, projecting meeting rooms and terraces to create a design centered around social gathering spaces and green pockets at every level.]
Three : Tiny courtyards for better social interactions and some fresh air:
Often, in the quest to consume all available FSI, it may be impossible to provide large courtyards. But even an eight feet wide tiny courtyard can become the soul of a building by bringing in day light and visually connecting different floors.
[Image 7- A tiny 8’ x 21’ atrium courtyard within a Family Home at Nagpur. The courtyard visually connects different levels of the house and is designed to create a sense of togetherness that binds a large joint family]
Four: The Staircase as a courtyard for cross ventilation and visual connectivity:
Some projects are so hemmed in from all sides that even the tiniest courtyard is impossible. But converting the staircase into a courtyard is still a possibility as we found while designing one of our favourite projects in Bangalore.
The staircase is a vertical connector that is a mandatory part of any building and organizing it, such that it visually connects different levels and becomes a conduit for sun and wind, can convert it into an urban courtyard that much like a traditional courtyard can serve as a space for social connections and welcome breaks, with minimal waste of precious floor space.
(Images 8 and 9- The core of this ‘out of the box’ office building for Nirvana Films at Bangalore is the N-S connector staircase that slices through the building with a huge skylight above, suffusing it with sunlight and natural ventilation.
Five: Use the terraces for social interactions:
The roof terrace is a free of fsi space. If possible, carving into the building to provide small terraces at every level can allow for each classroom to have a small attached open space. But whether at one level or at many, greening up the terrace for the children to use is such a simple possibility! It can bring an additional benefit – the joy of learning from nature!
Six: Balconies for well ventilated social interactions:
Some cities have, very wisely, retained the possibility of cantilevered balconies and double height terraces over and above the permissible fsi allowed for the building. If one is lucky to be in such a city, needless to say, all balconies must be availed for breezy, social spaces.
The lockdown in the wake of Covid 19 has forced us to pause and reflect, and simple solutions like the ones described here and perhaps several more are available to design post-covid city schools. These simple solutions that promote better physical-emotional health and happiness align beautifully with the spirit of sustainable development. Buildings and cities that work with climate will consume less energy and lower our carbon footprint. Likewise, buildings and cities that promote social interactions will help provide an emotionally stronger social fabric through better communication and understanding, one that, hopefully, will lead to a more inclusive, fair and tolerant society. So, in promoting our own health and happiness, we can simultaneously nurture the planet and its people – the wonderful i n t e r c o n n e c t e d n e s s of all fates! Sometimes it takes a pandemic to remind us.
Overview: Transforming Land and Sea for a More Sustainable World
Aerial photos often document the destruction of the natural world. But these striking satellite images show how countries are beginning to respond to the global environmental crisis by restoring ecosystems, expanding renewable energy, and building climate resiliency infrastructure.
17 December 2020
As the global population nears 8 billion, the human footprint can be seen in almost every corner of the Earth. Logging roads cut deep into the Amazon rainforest. Plastics swirl in remote parts of the ocean. The world’s largest gold mine is carved out of the mountains of Indonesia.
Satellite and aerial images have captured much of this destruction, often in startling and unsettling images. But a new collection of photos offers a different view: Images of places where efforts are underway to slow or even reverse the damage we have done to the planet — massive wind and solar energy facilities being built on a vast scale; sea walls erected to hold back rising waters; an ambitious tree planting campaign to help stop the advance of desertification in sub-Saharan Africa. When seen from above, these cutting-edge projects are stunning and starkly beautiful.
These early markers of a transformation to a more sustainable world are captured in a new collection of photos published in the book Overview Timelapse: How We Change the Earth. Co-author Benjamin Grant says the scale of the innovation on display is indicative of how quickly society can tackle environmental challenges when it is motivated. “If you get the right momentum and the right belief behind a certain idea, change can happen quickly,” says Grant. “And it’s not necessarily all change for the negative, there can be change for the positive as well.”
The Oosterscheldekering, translated as the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, is the largest of a series of 13 dams designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding from the North Sea. It was constructed in response to the widespread damage and loss of life due to the North Sea flood of 1953. The barrier spans approximately 5.6 miles and uses large, sliding gate–type doors that can be closed during surging tides.
A year of progress (2018-2019) in the Great Green Wall initiative, a massive tree-planting initiative that aims to stop the march of desertification in Africa’s Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara. In an area impacted by worsening droughts, food scarcity, and climate migration, the project intends to restore 250 million acres of degraded land by 2030 by planting a 5,000-mile tree line, such as this section along the border of Mauritania and Senegal.
Blades for wind turbines grouped together at a manufacturing facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. Individual blades are transported from this facility on top of trucks to wind farms and then assembled on-site. The longest blades seen here are 350 feet long, or 1.3 times the length of a New York City block.
For decades, the waters of Nanri Island in the South China Sea have been cultivated for the growth of kelp and seaweed and the raising of abalone (large sea snails). Since 2015, offshore wind turbines have been operating amid the fishing nets that surround the Chinese island, with minimal effect on aquaculture production.
The Fântânele-Cogealac Wind Farm in Romania is the largest onshore wind farm in Europe. The facility is constructed in the midst of canola fields, demonstrating the type of dual-land use possible with renewable energy. With 240 turbines, the wind farm generates 10 percent of Romania’s renewable energy production.
A before and after look at the installation of solar panels atop the Westmont Distribution Center in San Pedro, California. The 2 million square feet of panels have a bifacial design, meaning they can collect reflected light from the surface of the roof in addition to direct sunlight. This enables the panels to generate up to 45 percent more power than traditional rooftop solar panels and power 5,000 nearby homes.
An aerial view of the $6-billion MOSE system in Venice, Italy, a network of 78 steel gates designed to hold back sea level rise and protect the city from storm surges from the Adriatic Sea. Venice, built on top of a lagoon, already experiences regular flooding as high tides bring water into the city’s streets. The MOSE system, scheduled for completion in 2022, will be capable of stopping tides up to 9.8 feet.
The Sustainable City is a complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, built to be the first net-zero-emissions development in the country. The area is home to roughly 2,700 people with housing, offices, retail, health care, and food shopping all on-site. Eleven “biodome” greenhouses generate produce for the complex’s residents, a passive cooling system keeps energy requirements low, and all houses come with solar panels and UV-reflective paint to reduce heat buildup.
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