Date: 7 March 2024 Time: 16:15 – 17:30 CET Event Language: English
Format: In-person Location: Paris, France
Organized by: Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion & Ministry of Energy Transition, France; Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) – United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Partners: IEA, EHPA, IRENA, Clean Heat Forum, UNEP-U4E, UNEP Cool Coalition
Description:
Heating and cooling, which account for more than half of the energy demand in buildings, are critical areas to curb buildings sector emissions and achieve near zero emissions and resilient buildings.
Currently, most of the heating demand is met by fossil fuels, such as fossil gas, oil, and coal, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. According to the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario and IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook’s 1.5C scenario, a 70% reduction of space heating energy consumption by 2050 (IEA) and CO2 emissions reduced by around 85% (IRENA), thanks to more ambitious buildings energy codes, fuel shift to renewable energy and scaling-up deployment of energy efficient equipment.
At the same time, under current policy settings, space cooling energy consumption is expected to more than double by 2050. Passive designs, behavioral change, and making efficient equipment the standard solution are needed to manage demand growth and ease strain on electricity systems.
However, the adoption of efficient and clean heating and cooling technologies is still low, due to various barriers, such as high upfront costs, low operations cost for fossil fuels based systems, lack of awareness, regulatory hurdles, and market fragmentation. To overcome these barriers, there is a need for concerted action from all stakeholders, including policy makers, industry, civil society, and consumers. There is also a need for innovation and collaboration, to develop and deploy new solutions that can meet the diverse and changing needs of the building sector.
Objectives:
The primary goal is to advance the global agenda on clean heating and cooling equipment in buildings, emphasizing the importance of sustainable solutions in addressing environmental challenges.
This overall goal unfolds in the following objectives for the event:
- Provide an overview of readily available and deployable clean heating and cooling technologies and systems.
- Indicate obstacles and opportunities for their faster deployment, including through system integration.
- Identify main steps to be taken by policy makers and industry to improve the competitive position of said technologies in the markets.
- Increased stakeholders coordination and engagement to accelerate an affordable transition of heating and cooling.