As hurricanes and typhoons slam into the Southeastern US and the Philippines, there is growing focus on how climate disruption is contributing to more powerful storm surges.
Even as President Trump pulls the U.S. back from the Paris global climate accord, many states and cities have stepped forward to keep faith with the emission reduction goals. Mayors and governors are gathering this week in San Francisco’s Global Action Climate Summit, convened by California Governor Jerry Brown. The governor signed legislation earlier this week to make California transition entirely to carbon-free energy by 2045.
But a luxury housing boom, powered in part by trillions in global investment capital, is now threatening to upend the ability of many cities to reduce their carbon emissions. Cranes are rising across North American cities, a sign of an unprecedented building bonanza of skyscrapers for the wealthy. Many of these properties, with condominiums starting at $2 million, are not net-zero-carbon buildings and require new fossil fuel infrastructure to power.
Wealthy investors, those who hold an increasing share of the planet’s wealth, are seeking safe havens to invest their wealth and preserve its value. With anticipated volatility in the stock market, there are few better wealth storage units than real property in the U.S. and Canada.
In a report I co-authored, Towering Excess, I examine the perils of Boston’s luxury building boom in terms of its impact on inequality, affordable housing, and the increasing risks of illicit funds and money laundering. The report received extensive coverage in The Boston Globe and other regional media, touching a nerve about inequality and housing displacement. These trends are also part of a global hidden wealth problem, as ultra-high net worth individuals seek to shelter wealth from taxation and mask illicit activities.
But the way these properties increase carbon emissions and require the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure has been overlooked in the coverage.
Many of Boston’s new luxury buildings, for example, are energy hogs, failing to live up to state-of-the-art energy efficiency standards.
“Not only are these developments magnifying racial and class disparities by escalating the cost of land and housing in these neighborhoods, they are also so grotesque in their consumption of resources,” said Professor Daniel Faber who directs the Environmental Justice Research Collaborative at Northeastern University.
“This luxury boom threatens to drive up energy, infrastructure, and congestion costs for all of Boston’s low-income and middle class residents. To build energy inefficient and resource-hungry buildings in a city that is increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change is unconscionable, and further imperils the future of the city,” said Faber.
