Achieving zero emission in China's urban building sector: opportunities and barriers

In recent years, the concept of nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) has gained wide attention in developed countries. Because of its contribution to achieving full decarbonization in the building sector, NZEB is starting to become a new design target of future buildings and an important means to achieve the 1.5 degrees goal in building sector. This paper reviews the development of NZEB technologies during the past two years (2015-2017) since the IPCC AR5 published and assesses the opportunities and barriers of NZEB in China's urban areas. The analysis suggests that NZEB is feasible in Chinese cities and there is a certain opportunity to achieve zero carbon emission in China's urban area, but there are some limitations and barriers. In order to widely implement NZEB, China should (1) lower the energy service demand in high-rise buildings and consider realizing a high population density with low-rise buildings; (2) promote efficient cooling technologies and the energy saving behavior of occupants.