ABSTRACT
China’s urbanisation has caused city populations to grow rapidly, boosting continuous development and scaling-up the construction industry. In 2014, China issued a series of plans related to green building, which highlighted the problems of rapid urbanisation and the need to promote green production and consumption as part of the day-to-day urban economic life. This chapter explores the resulting pathways for a low-carbon transition in the Chinese building sector, focusing on two main dimensions: i) energy efficiency efforts to reduce emissions; and ii) green energy consumption in buildings, with an emphasis on scaling up renewable energy. This green building pathway presents decarbonisation opportunities; however, barriers may affect its implementation, and potential negative side effects resulting from such a pathway could counteract the mitigation efforts in the sector.
