Property plan’s ‘low carbon’ goal

Improving the environmental performance of buildings in North America can cut the region’s carbon emissions more than any other measure, a study suggests.

The rapid take-up of current and new technologies could save the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by transport in the US, it concluded.
However, it added that developers and homeowners were not willing to pay the extra cost for energy saving measures.

Buildings are responsible for about 35% of the region’s man-made CO2 emissions.

The report published by the Commission for Environmental Co-operation (CEC), an international organisation created by Canada, Mexico and the US, said it was possible for the most efficient buildings to consume 70% less energy than conventional properties.

Each year, it said, energy used by buildings in North America resulted in more than 2,200 megatonnes of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere.

But it said that it was possible to reduce this by 1,700 megatonnes, compared to a “business as usual” approach, by 2030.

BBC