Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a consortium of four research institutes (Climate Analytics, PIK, ECOFYS, New Climate Institute), has warned that faced with a policy that fails to change, demand in energy from the construction sector – a sector that currently accounts for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions – is expected to double by 2050 compared to 2010 levels.
To reverse this trend, the report – “Constructing the Future: Will the building Sector Use its Decarbonisation tools?” – drafted by CAT calls on the sector to swiftly meet the challenge of building energy performance as a means of respecting the Paris climate agreement targets. This report was intentionally published two days before the entry into force of this global agreement, which became effective on Friday 4 November (see other article).
This report demonstrates that technologies exist for constructing zero-emission buildings and that any delays in implementing them will cost renovation dearly, but will put pressure on other sectors, such as industry and transport, so that that they reduce their emissions further.
“We have to start building ‘Paris Agreement-proof’ buildings today… Given the long lifetimes of buildings, rapid action is especially important in this sector. Any inefficient buildings we construct today will have to be renovated at greater cost later, adding to the challenge we’re already facing in renovating the majority of the existing building stock”, Karlien Wouters from Ecofys said in a press release.
The report analyses how emissions can be reduced in compliance with the Paris agreement target (maintaining average temperature increases on the surface of the Earth to below 2°C and continuing efforts to reach the 1.5°C target).
To this end, it has elaborated a scenario that is compatible with the objective of average global warming of 1.5°. This would mean that all new buildings would have zero-energy consumption in the OECD by 2020 and by 2025 in non-OECD countries. This objective would be combined with very high levels of renovation of all building stock – which would enable the sector to succeed in eliminating almost all emissions by 2050, in full compliance with the 1.5° target.
This report is the second in the series by CAT on decarbonisation. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)