Yet another report on buildings and energy

       

Further reading

• UNEP Report: Assessment of Policy Instruments for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Buildings (15)
• United Nations Environment Program (14)

This time from UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme. This one reiterates that the buildings in the world consume some 30-40% of the global energy and that they can be improved substantially. When it comes to the overall facts, there is little surprise. This one, however, addresses a lot of people with the message that what they call "passive" measures (saving that is), should be subject to technology-transfer instruments such as the CDM in the Kyoto-mechanisms. Active measures (energy supply that is) are already eligible for CDM.

Nonetheless, even if the message and the overall facts are not surprising, the details in the argumentation are very impressive and useful and substantiated with very creative graphs such as this one, which shows that economic activity has moved east.