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“WE HAVE to do everything, and we have to do it immediately.” That quote, from climate scientist Piers Forster at the University of Leeds, UK, has haunted me ever since I wrote it down almost a year ago. I was interviewing Forster for a piece on limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Like many senior scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he remains institutionally optimistic that we can pull off a rescue. But he didn’t mince his words.

That was just after an IPCC report spelled out the scale and speed of the changes needed to avoid catastrophic warming of more than 1.5°C. It was widely reported as giving us “12 years to save the planet” – not entirely accurate, but not entirely wrong either, and a useful rallying cry for action. We now have 11 years. So it’s a good time to ask, with another year over, what have we done?

I put this question to another titan in the climate ecosystem, Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. I asked him what had actually happened since the 1.5°C report came out. His answer can be summarised in two words: not much. Carbon emissions and consumption of fossil fuels are still rising, he admitted. But, he said, “the mental attitude has changed… sentiment has moved in the right direction”.

Really? Is that all we have? Sure, sentiment matters, but Greta Thunberg alone can’t achieve the hard yards of getting emissions down. I felt like Talaas was putting a brave face on an increasingly hopeless situation. A few weeks on from our conversation, however, my gloom has lifted a little. I’m not about to do a U-turn: we are still in deep trouble. But if you look behind the headline figures on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption, there are glimmers of light.

One of them is emanating from an industry that is rarely recognised as being on the front line of the climate fight, yet actually wields a disproportionate influence: architecture. In the past year, UK architects have declared a climate emergency, inspired in part by a new grass-roots organisation called the (ACAN) whose stated aim is to rapidly decarbonise the building sector.

“If you look behind the headline figures on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels, there are glimmers of light”

That may sound like small beer, but it isn’t. According to the IPCC, buildings are responsible for about a third of the world’s total energy consumption, and so the built environment is absolutely critical to solving the climate crisis. The 1.5°C report called for , the most ambitious target in the entire document.

According to Duncan Baker-Brown from the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Brighton, UK, ACAN increasingly reflects mainstream opinion in the sector. Even those working on colossal infrastructure projects, such as the Heathrow Airport expansion and the HS2 railway – guzzlers of concrete and steel – are seriously thinking about how to go zero carbon. Similar movements are emerging across Europe and North America.

Architecture can make a real impact, says Baker-Brown. “Architects specify what buildings are made of, and can therefore decide to make them out of environmentally benign stuff.” That principally means recycling materials instead of demolishing buildings. To put it in perspective, the construction industry creates 60 per cent of the UK’s waste – 120 million tonnes a year – and the built environment contributes around 40 per cent of the UK’s carbon footprint. “Architects are thinking, ‘Actually, we can do something about this’,” he says.

This isn’t the sole solution. But if a small group of activists inside a profession like architecture can turn sentiment into action in less than a year, then maybe Taalas’s optimism is justified.

The renewable energy industry – the one bright spot in the gloomy picture painted by the IPCC – is also powering on. Last month, the International Energy Agency reported that offshore wind could generate more than enough electricity to meet global demand. That would go a long way to decarbonising not just our energy supply, but also buildings, transport and industry, four of the sectors earmarked by the IPCC for immediate and transformational change. And if the Green New Deal – a gigantic environmental infrastructure plan proposed by the US Democratic party – can be set in motion next year, then we are really starting to talk about a revolution.

Forster is feeling optimistic too. “With the public, businesses and cities, the conversations have shifted from if we cut emissions to how,” he says. “Government needs to do much more, but even here, there are some encouraging signs.”

We still have to do everything, immediately. But at least we aren’t doing nothing.