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Infographic: key findings from the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for the buildings sector.

A new briefing issued today distils the key findings from the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for the buildings sector.

“Adopting Decarbonization Policies in the Buildings and Construction Sector” provides a review of the evidence of the impact of implementing cost-effective policy measures to reduce the carbon footprint of the buildings and construction sector.

The building sector is not on track to lower total greenhouse gas emissions. Given that emissions from the sector represent nearly 40% of global energy-and process-related emissions, this represents a serious challenge to keeping global warming to 1.5oC. The Buildings sector must therefore decarbonize.To support this goal, this report focuses on policy drivers for decarbonisation, and the costs and benefits associated with their implementation.

This rapid review identified two results extracted from the eight studies (published between 2013 and 2018) that fulfilled our inclusion criteria. Firstly, our analysis identified five common themes across the included studies which provide tentative information for what would be needed to make low carbon residential retrofit/renovation policy work. Secondly, we make an overall observation that the included studies did not provide sufficient evidence or establish conclusive results about the effectiveness of specific low carbon policies compared to other policies.