Government effort is critical to make sustainable buildings a reality. Immediate action is needed to expand and strengthen mandatory energy policies everywhere, and governments can work together to transfer knowledge and share best practices.
Yet, cumulative household energy spending to 2050 is around USD 5 trillion lower in the Faster Transition Scenario, leading to net savings for consumers, with the average share of household income spent on energy falling from 5% today to around 2.5% by 2050. Heat pumps cut typical energy use for heating by a factor of four or more, while solar thermal delivers carbon-free heat to nearly 3 billion people.Ī surge in clean energy investment will ultimately bring savings across the global economy and cut in half the proportion of household income spent on energy. Realising sustainable buildings requires annual capital flows to increase by an average of USD 27 billion (United Sates dollars) over the next decade – a relatively small addition to the USD 4.9 trillion dollars already invested each year in buildings globally. Energy use is cut further by a doubling in air conditioner efficiency, even as 1.5 billion households gain access to cooling comfort. Technology can reduce CO 2 emissions from buildings while improving comfort and services. In the Faster Transition Scenario, near-zero energy construction and deep energy renovations reduce the sector’s energy needs by nearly 30% to 2050, despite a doubling of global floor area. The buildings sector sees the fastest CO2 reduction, falling by an average of 6% per year to one-eighth of current levels by 2050. The carbon intensity of the power sector falls by more than 90% and the end-use sectors see a 65% drop, thanks to energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies and shifts to low-carbon electricity. In fact, since 2000, the rate of electricity demand in buildings increased five-times faster than improvements in the carbon intensity of the power sector.ĬO 2 emissions need to peak around 2020 and enter a steep decline thereafter. In the Faster Transition Scenario, energy-related emissions drop 75% by 2050. The buildings sector represented 28% of those emissions, two-thirds from rapidly growing electricity use. The pace and scale of the global clean energy transition is not in line with climate targets. Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions rose again in 2018 by 1.7%. In 2018, the IEA provided further insights into the fundamentally important role of energy efficiency to achieve that energy transition. In 2017, the International Energy Agency (IEA) explored how a very ambitious and rapid energy transition to address climate change might look, in support of the German presidency of the G20. This ranges from traditional, yet highly effective policy tools to ambitious, innovative market-based approaches that can increase the speed and scale of investment for a sustainable buildings sector. Importantly, it sets out what policy makers can do to overcome the economic and non-economic barriers to accelerate investment in low-carbon, energy-efficient solutions in the buildings sector. It considers the investment needs and strategies to enable the buildings sector transition, and the multiple benefits that transformation would deliver, including improving the quality and affordability of energy services in buildings for billions of people. This report explores the critical role buildings can play in meeting climate change ambitions, using a portfolio of clean energy solutions that exist today.