The climate solution hiding in apartments

Alan Durning at Sightline has a new report arguing that the climate movement is underrating one strategy for reducing climate change: apartment buildings. Apartment buildings have lower carbon emissions than single-family homes for several reasons. They are more energy efficient; more likely to be heated by electricity; and when sited near offices, shops, and public transit, let people get around more on foot, by bike, and by public transit instead of driving. But perhaps just as important is the fact that housing policy is tractable. Building more apartments doesn’t require new government spending, nor asking people to make hard tradeoffs. Private developers want to build apartment buildings, and people want to live in them, if only they are allowed. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last year to enable building more apartment buildings, but there is a long way to go.