Expert: Balancing sustainable housing provision with environmental goals is key challenge

Balancing sustainable housing provision with environmental goals is a key challenge.

Report informs that Ombretta Tempra, head of the Land, Housing and Shelter Section at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and lead specialist on housing provision, said this at the "Open-ended Intergovernmental Expert Working Group on Adequate Housing for All: Intersessional Meeting on Housing Resilience and Sustainability," held as part of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku.

"Let us look at the regional level and see how this manifests itself in different regions, because although we know there are global trends, we also know that interregional diversity is very significant. Again, we see how this manifests itself across different regions, both in terms of vulnerability and, for example, in terms of contribution to carbon emissions and so on.

"It is not surprising at all to see a major difference in per capita CO₂ emissions in the construction sector. For example, Africa has the lowest per capita contribution, while Latin America and Southeast Asia are also positive examples in this regard. On the other hand, per capita contributions come from the developed world and Middle Eastern countries.

"So, it is clear that different models of solutions have a real impact on how we, as humanity, contribute to CO₂ emissions. Also, if regional considerations are viewed from a negative perspective - for example, if we look at the spread of slums - we would see a similar trend.

"So here we have a very complex and defining challenge, or a defining test of our era and our time: to focus and improve our efforts where adequate housing solutions need to be expanded, while at the same time not doing so by increasing our environmental impact and footprint."