Building Sector & Climate Change: The Case of Hungary

Abstract

Building sector plays an important role in climate impacts mitigation, as it is responsible for 40% of global energy use and global GHG emissions. Climate change has a dual implication on the built environment: on one hand human settlements and buildings are vulnerable to the effects of changing climate and on the other hand the building sector has a significant climate change mitigation potential. Although nowadays the trends are positive, the share of newly built low-energy buildings is very low, the near-zero-energy building market is in its early phase. Simultaneously the optimizing technologies in the building design are strongly highlighted. The presence of the energy and environment efficient buildings and the stringent building energy regulations of the EU need more accurate building design. The constant design parameters will come to foreground and their role will be appreciated. The relevant sustainable development and building policies, as well as the building design, construction and maintenance should jointly respond both to adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. This paper focuses the relevance of the main constant design parameter: How to take into account the increasing outdoor temperature in the building energy design.