A global comparison of building decarbonization scenarios by 2050 towards 1.5–2 °C targets

On June 2, 2022, the journal Nature Communications published the article “A global comparison of building decarbonization scenarios by 2050 towards 1.5–2 °C targets” written by Camarasa C. et. al, co-authored by 21 authors distributed in 11 institutions (including IAMC members: JRC, NREL, COPPE/UFRJ, USFQ). This study integrates building stock energy models for 32 countries across four continents to create carbon emission mitigation reference scenarios and decarbonization scenarios by 2050, covering 60% of today’s global building emissions. These decarbonization pathways are compared to those from global models. Results demonstrate that reference scenarios are in all countries insufficient to achieve substantial decarbonization and lead, in some regions, to significant increases, i.e., China and South America. Decarbonization scenarios lead to substantial carbon reductions within the range projected in the 2 °C scenario but are still insufficient to achieve the decarbonization goals under the 1.5 °C scenario.