Sectoral Coordination to Maximize China’s National and Provincial Building Carbon Emissions Mitigation

Qiance Liu; Kairui You; Xin Ouyang; Wei Feng; Kun Sun; Menglin Dai; Wu Chen; Weiguang Cai; Gang Liu

doi:10.1016/j.eng.2026.09.012

Engineering ›› :202609012 DOI: 10.1016/j.eng.2026.09.012

research-article

Sectoral Coordination to Maximize China’s National and Provincial Building Carbon Emissions Mitigation

Qiance Liu ^a^,^#
, Kairui You ^b^,^c^,^#
, Xin Ouyang ^d
, Wei Feng ^e^,^f
, Kun Sun ^a^,^g
, Menglin Dai ^a
, Wu Chen ^g
, Weiguang Cai ^c^,^*
, Gang Liu ^a^,^h^,^*

Author information +

^a College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University , Beijing 100871, China

^b Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology , Beijing 100081, China.

^c School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University , Chongqing 400044, China

^d Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo , Tokyo 153-8904, Japan

^e Building Technology & Urban Systems Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

^f Institute of Technology for Carbon Neutrality, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shenzhen 518055, China

^g SDU Life Cycle Engineering, Department of Green Technology, University of Southern Denmark , Odense 5230, Denmark

^h Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Peking University , 100871, Beijing, China

^*Email addresses:wgcai@cqu.edu.cn (W. Cai),

gangliu@pku.edu.cn (G. Liu)

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Abstract

The building sector is central to achieving China’s carbon peak and neutrality targets, yet existing assessments seldom integrate full life cycle emissions into subnational policy design. Here we develop a building material–energy–emission (BMEE) model to quantify direct, indirect, and embodied CO₂ emissions from all building types across 31 Chinese mainland provinces from 2000 to 2060 and to evaluate 50 policy scenarios that combine five strategies: urban renewal, green buildings, low-carbon construction, circular economy, and energy transition. The model links dynamic material flow analysis with energy balance sheet splitting, supported by newly compiled national databases on building material and operational energy intensities, and incorporates a renovation module that prioritizes renovation over demolition. We find that China’s building emissions have peaked around 2017 and can decline to between 0.69 and 2.48 Gt (10⁹ tonnes) CO₂ by 2060. Under the lowest-emission pathway, cumulative emissions are reduced by 39.5% relative to business-as-usual, with urban renewal providing the largest contribution to total mitigation, followed by green buildings and energy transition. Public buildings, the material sector, and northern provinces exhibit the largest mitigation potentials, while provincial results highlight distinct strategy priorities. Monte Carlo analysis confirms that these conclusions are robust despite widening parametric uncertainty. Our findings underscore the importance of sectoral coordination and regionally tailored policy packages to maximize building decarbonization in China and provide a scalable framework for other large countries facing concurrent new construction and stock-renewal challenges.

Keywords

Building decarbonization / Building-Material-Energy-Emission (BMEE) model / Urban renewal / Sectoral coordination / Provincial disparities

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Qiance Liu, Kairui You, Xin Ouyang, Wei Feng, Kun Sun, Menglin Dai, Wu Chen, Weiguang Cai, Gang Liu. Sectoral Coordination to Maximize China’s National and Provincial Building Carbon Emissions Mitigation. Engineering 202609012 DOI:10.1016/j.eng.2026.09.012

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