The United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) starts at the end of this month in Glasgow, Scotland, where representatives of more than 190 countries will convene to hammer out action plans for curbing planetary warming.

In advance of this meeting, a coalition of over 60 of the largest international architecture firms and other building industry companies, along with 25 organizations, including the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the U.S. Green Building Council, issued a communique calling on government leaders to step up their carbon reductions for the built environment, limiting warming to 1.5^oC—the threshold that scientists say should not be crossed in order to avoid climate change’s worst effects.

 "Those responsible for planning, designing, and constructing the global built environment are leading and transforming our sector so that it is a major part of the solution to the climate crisis," said Edward Mazria, founder and CEO of Architecture 2030, the non-profit that organized the communique. "It’s long past time for governments to accelerate the pace of emissions reductions so that we don’t exceed the 1.5^oC target."

See a list of the signatories and the press release they have issued here.