As the climate changes there will be ever-increasing social and economic pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, with focus turning to the embodied carbon in products which has thus far been eclipsed by operational values. Structural engineers will be compelled to account for how they have apportioned carbon-intensive resources - particularly steel and concrete - and will be challenged to use them ever more efficiently. In turn, this will alter how designs are formulated and assessed, how structures are built and adapted, and ultimately how engineers approach their roles on projects and in society. The international scientific consensus is that global temperatures are rising primarily due to mankind's release of carbon dioxide (CO_2) into the atmosphere~1. These temperature rises are causing a change in Earth's climate and leading to more extreme weather events that will harm large swathes of humanity. At some point, probably after a particularly calamitous climactic event, society will realise that we must seriously address the underlying cause of climate change and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by half, as scientists advise2.
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