As Durban, and the rest of the world, reflects on the Conference of the Parties’ 17th Climate Change Conference 2011 (COP17) that was held last week, it’s easy to say that not much was done. The Kyoto Treaty, which was on the cards as a massive topic for debate, has been extended another six years, and will be up for review in 2017, with it’s expiry set for 2018.
America, Japan and Australia all found enough wriggle room to avoid confronting their non-adherence to reducing their carbon emissions to the agreed amount and many other discussions were held that served to inform, more than incite change.
But the bigger picture is this: the world is concerned and South Africans were made aware of the weight and intent of the international players to unite and build a future that is sustainable for destined generations.
As a passionate and devoted green builder, Vexiflex is not sitting around and waiting until politicians and tree-huggers agree; we believe that the world is already behind in protecting and looking after our environment. The oldest instruction to mankind was to ‘tend the garden’, and we understand this to mean that we need to be responsible with what we have in a way that will provide more for others.
But the bigger picture is this: the world is concerned and South Africans were made aware of the weight and intent of the international players to unite and build a future that is sustainable for destined generations.
As a passionate and devoted green builder, Vexiflex is not sitting around and waiting until politicians and tree-huggers agree; we believe that the world is already behind in protecting and looking after our environment. The oldest instruction to mankind was to ‘tend the garden’, and we understand this to mean that we need to be responsible with what we have in a way that will provide more for others.
If we have learnt anything, as spectators of the world’s largest and most significant conference on climate change, it is that we need collaboration and unity. This means that we need to play our part too. There will always be debates and discussions, but we won’t always have time. Vexiflex is constantly looking for improved and innovative ways to design, engineer and build structures that will bring balance to the environment in which they are built, and not detract. Sometimes, as we wrote in our article on rammed earth, it means revisiting older traditions in our trade that were less technology driven and directly responsive to the environment.
So, things may seem to ‘go back to normal’ as the politicians, scientists, environmentalist, economists, activists and world leaders depart from Durbs, but they definitely will not be the same. The platform for true lifestyle change and carbon footprinting has opened many eyes and contributed to the acceleration of the process of change. The cogs are turning and we are part of it!
