Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.1
Global CO
2
emis-
sions by sector.
Source
: (IEA,
2008
).
Note
: Others include
construction and agricul-
ture/fishing
emissions increased their commitments to reduce their emissions to values similar
to 1990 but for the year 2010, and at the same time, limits on CO
2
emissions of
developing countries were fixed. This agreement was signed in December 1997 in
Kyoto (Japan), known as the Kyoto Protocol (CMNUCC
1998
).
Within the EuropeanUnion framework, the strategyEurope 2020 (
2013
) appeared.
This strategy emphasises a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as a way to over-
come the structural weaknesses in Europe's economy, improves its productivity and
competitiveness, and reinforces a sustainable social market economy. Concretely, in
this strategy five ambitious objectives have been fixed—on employment, innovation,
education, social inclusion and climate change/energy—which should be reached by
2020. More specifically, from both climate change and energy points of view three
main objectives have been established:
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% in comparison to 1990.
To increase the market share of renewable energy sources in final energy consump-
tion to 20%.
To improve energy efficiency by 20%.
Furthermore, according to recent studies, energy consumption in buildings (resi-
dential and non-residential) represents approximately 40% of the total world energy
consumption, mainly attributed toHeating, Ventilation andAir Conditioning (HVAC)
systems (Morosan et al.
2010
; Pérez-Lombard et al.
2008
; Yang et al.
2003
), and
moreover, they are also responsible for approximately 35% of CO
2
emissions, see
residential and services sectors in Fig.
1.1
. For this reason, the energy consumption
reduction associated with the construction and use of buildings, together with the
increase in energy efficiency in their climatic refurbishment are topics being widely
analysed by academia and industry (Kolokotsa et al.
2001
).
