Embodied Carbon Emissions in China’s Building Sector: Historical Track from 2005 to 2020

China’s large-scale construction has led to massive energy consumption and carbon emissions. The embodied carbon emissions (ECs) of China’s building sector play a key role in realizing national emission reduction targets. Currently, the understanding of the status quo of ECs is vague and inconsistent, and the existing accounting models still have several limitations. Therefore, this study develops two improved models (i.e., the process-based and the input-output-based life cycle assessment models) and dynamic accounting datasets to reveal historical trends and emission characteristics of ECs from 2005 to 2020. The results show that the total ECs in 2020 were as high as 2.28 billion tCO2, accounting for 25.2% of China’s total energy-related carbon emissions. The indirect ECs are the largest contributor, representing 95.9% of the total building ECs. The ECs increased quickly at first and entered a plateau, stable at about 2.2 billion tCO2 after 2015. From 2005 to 2020, the total building ECs contributed 38.7% to the national carbon emission growth, while the intensity of ECs showed a downward trend, indicating that the increase in China’s building ECs is scale-driven. This study provides sound methodological, and data support for emission tracing and the low-carbon development of China’s building sector.

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