Dublin is an EU mission climate-neutral and smart city, its climate plan commits it to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but with a growing population, and an ingrained housing crisis, how can it reconcile its housing needs and climate goals?
That question framed my master’s in climate change dissertation research and led to a comparative study of Dublin with six other European cities to explore how a model for a climate-just city, bringing sustainability, democracy, ecology and equity together, is shaped.
In planning, a wicked problem is difficult to solve because there is no single cause or solution. In Ireland, housing and climate change are twin wicked problems but addressed through policy silos rather than planned integration and system design.
Both housing and climate action should be about shaping a great place for people to live but in regions like Greater Dublin a disconnected approach to urban planning, and the lack of devolved regional and local governance, pits housing and climate policy against each other.
To economist Mariana Mazzucato and the former UN special rapporteur on housing, Leilani Farha the two are “inextricably linked” and in their policy work, they make the case that providing affordable, low-carbon housing must be an integral goal of any sustainable city and point to Vienna as a model. But Vienna, unlike Dublin, has an elected city and regional government, led by an executive mayor, with devolved powers to plan housing, climate action and services like transport together.
In Ireland, siloed thinking defines the lack of cohesion between the National Development Plan (NDP), Housing for All commitment of 300,000 new homes and the Climate Action Plan (Cap) roadmap for 51 per cent emissions cut by 2030. Research by the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) shows current policy will double sectoral emissions and erode the energy gains from the home retrofitting programme. The ESRI, in its July report, estimates Ireland needs an additional 44,000 new homes a year, significantly more than the NDP’s projections, and that the bulk of this population growth is concentrated in the Greater Dublin and mid-eastern region.
Yet that projected home demand, and its emissions impact, is not adequately measured in the Cap as it reflects the built environment through operational energy consumption, like power and heating, rather than the whole life cycle of a building, including the embodied carbon in construction. Concrete and cement account for 8 per cent of global emissions, almost three times aviation. The IGBC [Irish Green Building Council], in its research with UCD, puts construction and the built environment at 37 per cent of Ireland’s emissions (23 per cent operational and 14 per cent embodied carbon). Ireland does not have mandatory accounting of embodied carbon emissions although it is working to do so by 2030; to meet the requirements of the new EU Energy Performance of Building Directive the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, France and Finland have already implemented mandatory assessment and integrated home building into climate planning.
Data drive better decision-making and planning. Measuring embodied carbon, and knowing the true emissions cost of manufacturing and building, is key to mandating low-carbon materials, including innovations in concrete production, and alternative materials like timber or hempcrete. In Ireland, about a quarter of homes are timber-framed compared to 75 per cent in Scotland while plant-based materials like hempcrete are not promoted although hempcrete is being commercially farmed and widely used in housing in France.
In May, the Climate Change Advisory Council recommended a national strategy to increase the use of timber in construction, the introduction of whole-life carbon assessment, mandate low-carbon cement and incentivise the reuse of existing buildings over demolition. Ali Grehan, city architect with Dublin City Council has led on the council’s evidence-based shift from demolition and is leading on the regeneration of old social housing complexes, but a national policy to incentivise or even mandate building reuse over demolition is absent. Anyone walking through the city can see that the demolition remains a default commercial decision and Ireland has one of the worst material reuse, or circularity, rates in the EU (just 2 per cent compared to 11 per cent average) and the construction sector is particularly poor.
To those working in research like Dr Philip Crowe, UCD and Pat Barry, IGBC, policy solutions lie in better data, integrated urban design, enforced regulation and long-term planning. There is clear progress being made but it also comes down to vision and leadership. “We need to make the future irresistible,” says Crowe.
In Dublin, a pancake city, defined by sprawl across the county, the real challenge is the lack of a single, empowered regional authority governing a sustainable development vision. Dublin has four local authorities: Dublin City Council, Fingal, South Dublin and Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown, with four separate climate action plans; supported by the Climate Action Regional Offices and Codema.
In comparing Dublin with six other European cities — Vienna, Paris, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Amsterdam and Glasgow — on housing and climate policies, a system analysis looked at governance, the use of transformative models and public participation. On governance, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam and Helsinki all have elected executive mayors leading assemblies while Copenhagen and Glasgow have hybrid models of an elected leader and administration. Dublin’s chief executive-led councils (with elected part-time councillors and ceremonial mayors) reflect weak, disjointed governance and are poor on public participation. The governance gap is reflected in the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly report. It recommends an elected Dublin regional assembly, with devolved powers, led by an elected mayor. That report was published in December 2022 but is now gathering dust.
In transformative tools, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Vienna have adopted doughnut economics, with its emphasis on socio-economic and ecological balance, while Paris has moved to a bioclimatic planning model; bringing people, places and ecology together. Glasgow has developed a transformed equitable urban vision, the Glasgow Green Deal built around collaboration, research, innovation and partnerships.
Helsinki, a similarly sized city to Dublin, is particularly interesting. In 2017 it shifted from a chief executive-led council to an elected executive mayor, with the city manager reporting to the mayor. Its climate planning dates back to 2002 and by 2018 it included whole-life cycle carbon assessment in building. It has pioneered the use of 3D digital twinning to model energy analysis (a process now being used by Dublin City Council) and since last year all public capital projects must use low-carbon concrete and it prioritises social housing in low-carbon retrofitting. That distinction, that retrofit funding must prioritise social housing and be low-carbon, contrasts with the Irish model where much of the materials being used in the national retrofit plan are not “low-carbon”.
While a single, co-ordinated climate plan for the Great Dublin region would be a step forward, cities like Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Glasgow are now advancing from climate plans to integrated roadmaps while Paris is implementing its bioclimatic master plan. To shape a climate-resilient or climate-just city everything needs to be seen as an interconnected whole rather than in piecemeal change. Cities that are progressing are also empowering public participation, shifting from consultation to co-design models, using tools like participatory budgets, citizen forums, plebiscites (Paris had one on e-scooters) or Glasgow’s climate board that brings together science and civic society.
“The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned,” the environment scientist and systems thinker, Donella Meadows wrote. Envisioning Dublin’s future, bringing housing and climate needs together, requires transformative system change. Local government needs reform. In the short-term Dublin could move to a Glasgow-style hybrid governance model. There is equally nothing preventing all four Dublin local authorities from collaborating on a single agreed climate plan, or roadmap, for the region. That could enhance public engagement and support. Ultimately, a climate-resilient housing model must bring together design, data and planning to benefit people, places and the environment. It needs to put reuse first, demolition last, measure life-cycle carbon, and prioritise low-carbon intensive building methods; including in retrofitting.
Climate-resilient housing model
In the long term the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly report needs to be dusted down and actioned. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres has said that “cities are where the climate battle will ... be won or lost”. Empowering Dublin to shape a climate-just city, and deliver housing as a climate action, could secure a sustainable and thriving Ireland for all.
Helen Shaw has an MSc in Climate Change — Policy, Media and Society from Dublin City University — and presented this research paper at the 35th International Geographical Congress in Dublin recently
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