Decarbonisation in Building and Construction Sector Slows Despite Efficiency Gains: UNEP
The report noted that climate action in the housing sector must go hand-in-hand with tackling the growing global housing affordability crisis.
Buildings and construction currently account for around 37% of global carbon emissions and nearly half of global material extraction, making it one of the largest contributors to climate change.
Visual Credits: UNEP Report
A new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Building and Construction (GlobalABC) found that there has been a slowdown in decarbonisation within the building and construction sector. This shift can become a major source of emission and increasingly vulnerable to climate impact and energy price shocks.
The report highlighted positive signs of progress over the decade with building energy intensity falling down by 8.5% and the share of renewables in buildings’ energy supply has risen by 4.7 percentage points. Global investments in building energy efficiency reached $275 billion in 2024, a 38% increase from 2015 levels.
The report found that operational emissions from buildings increased by 1% in 2024 to reach 9.9 gigatonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), leaving the sector 3.5 GtCO2 above the trajectory required to align with the Paris Agreement goals. The sector will need to cut emissions by 56% from 2024 levels by 2030 to stay on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.
Building and Construction Account for Nearly Half of Global Material Extraction
The report came at a time when the world is grappling with a global housing and energy affordability crisis. Buildings and construction currently account for around 37% of global carbon emissions and nearly half of global material extraction, making it one of the largest contributors to climate change.
The report highlighted that every day, the world builds an estimated 12.7 million square metres of floor area which is roughly the equivalent of adding the entire city of Paris in new floor space nearly every week. In 2024, the global buildings floor area expanded by 1.7 per cent, reaching 273 billion square metres.Growth has slowed in Europe and China but remained robust in India and Southeast Asia.
The buildings and construction sector now accounts for nearly 50 per cent of global material extraction, 37 per cent of global emissions, and 28 per cent of global energy consumption, the report noted.
However, the report also noted that current progress remains insufficient. Energy efficiency investments would need an additional cumulative $3.6 trillion by 2030 to align with a net zero pathway.
Urgent Need to Phase Out Fossil Fuel and Scale Up Renewables
The report urged the governments to phase out fossil fuel heating and cooking, accelerate deep retrofitting of the existing buildings, strengthen building energy codes, and scale up the deployment of renewable energy in buildings to address the gap.
“Buildings can either lock in climate risks or deliver safer, healthier, and more affordable living conditions. With half of the world’s buildings yet to be built or renovated by 2050, governments have a critical opportunity to drive zero-emission, resilient construction through better policies, codes, and investment,” Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
The report also warned that climate action in the housing sector must go hand-in-hand with tackling the growing global housing affordability crisis as about 1 billion people globally live in informal settlements making the challenge of resilient and affordable housing urgent.
