Energy codes and building standards are essential to achieving greenhouse-gas-reduction targets and improving communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change. That was the message delivered in a pair of sessions held in-person and virtually on Friday at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland (RECORD attended virtually).
A presentation by the International Code Council (ICC)’s vice-president of innovation, Ryan Colker, spotlit a startling disconnect between countries’ aspirations to reduce building-sector emissions and the implementation of codes to do it. Although nearly three quarters of the climate commitments that countries submitted in advance of COP26 cite buildings as a priority for their emissions-reduction targets, only 20 percent of these so-called nationally determined contributions include building energy codes as a strategy. Conveying the missed opportunity with examples and projections, Colker called on “all governments to adopt and enforce building codes aligned with domestic and international goals.”
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