Energy consumption of the building sector: Incorporating urbanization, local climate change, and energy poverty

Abstract

Addressing energy consumption in the building sector in Europe is considered a matter of urgency, taken its contribution to the emissions of air pollutants and greenhouses gases, heat release, and annual material and energy use. In this paper, it is shown that existing, business as usual scenarios for addressing energy consumption in the building sector underestimate such critical parameters as urbanization, local climate change, and energy poverty. Furthermore, it is shown that (a) the building stock cannot be separated from the space between and around the buildings, with the space being influenced and finally shaped by urbanization, and (b) energy poverty sets an upper limit with respect to the capacity of households to comply with local climate change and energy conservation objectives. Finally, the importance of the interlinks between energy consumption on the one hand and urbanization, local climate change, and energy poverty on the other is examined and demonstrated in view of proposing an integrated energy, environmental, and social policy for energy consumption in the building sector.