Advising Germany's action towards green buildings in cities and regions of the Global South

The buildings and construction sector is central to achieve international climate targets. The built environment currently represents about 36% of global energy and process-related CO₂ emissions and 50% of global resource extraction. It is a booming sector with an expected doubling of the global building floor area by 2060 as compared to 2016, mainly driven by rapid urbanisation in Africa and Asia. Without rapid and ambitious action in the Global South, this trend will further increase CO₂ emissions and material consumption, while maladapted building design and construction can undermine climate resilience and lock local communities into high-emission pathways and energy scarcity.

Cities are hotspots for the necessary transition to a sustainable buildings and construction sector. They concentrate the majority of the global building stock and construction activities, as the sector accounts for up to 70% of urban CO₂ emissions. Urban areas are also among the most vulnerable to the effects of extreme climate events. By 2050, around 1.6 billion urban dwellers will be facing more frequent and deadlier heatwaves. A growing consensus acknowledges the pivotal role of local and subnational governments to deliver on the Paris Agreement and raise ambitions on the local implementation of NDCs. However, local action is still lagging, as the implementation of global and national goals continues to follow a top-down approach and international climate finance was shown to rarely trickle down to the local level.

adelphi provides technical and strategic expert support on buildings and construction to the programme “Leveraging Opportunities for Urban and Infrastructure Systems Transformation” (LOUIS, formerly known as LUCA) implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI). LOUIS advises the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) on promoting climate change mitigation in cities and regions in the Global South, engaging in international agenda setting and collaborating with initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) and the global NDC Partnership.

The support activities aim at strengthening LOUIS’ advisory function vis-à-vis the German government and its international partners by providing ad-hoc technical knowledge services in the form of policy briefs, think pieces and publication reviews, analytical services such as stakeholder mapping and trend scouting, as well as event conceptualisation, facilitation, and communication support.