We’re building a New York-sized city every month. That’s worrying for our climate

Art Wager/Getty Each of us needs of a roof over our head, classrooms to learn in and offices or space to work from.

To meet this unprecedented demand for new buildings, globally we’re constructing the equivalent of an entire New York City every month.

This provides us with vital infrastructure, but also generates an enormous amount of world-warming emissions .

So how can we build what we need, without harming our planet? Our new research provides some answers.

The need to build Creating new buildings benefits communities, cities and countries, and eases housing pressure.

That’s why Australia’s National Housing Accord is aiming to construct 1.2 million new, well-located homes between 2024 and 2029.

But this Australian effort is dwarfed by the 96,000 new and affordable homes needed worldwide every single day.

Tragically, hundreds of millions of people around the world endure homelessness.

One in four are living in harmful conditions.

However, construction comes with a climate cost.

Each time we build, we use materials and construction processes that release large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions – known as “ embodied carbon ”.

To understand the scale of embodied carbon, picture a square metre of floor space.

Constructing that square metre would release around half a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions.

Now scale that up to building a whole New York-sized city every month! Conventional building practices can release huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.