How to evaluate the efforts on reducing CO2 emissions for megacities? Public building practices in Shenzhen city.

• China's cities have made great efforts to promote energy-saving buildings. • Development of energy-saving building practices in Shenzhen city are examined. • Existing efforts could hardly offset the fast growth of buildings' energy demand. • Rethinking of taking advanced but localized energy-saving approaches is in order. China' cities have made great efforts to seek effective measures to encourage and promote energy-saving building practices, for decades. Shenzhen, a fast-growing megacity in Southern China, has been one of the first practitioners to vigorously promote sustainable development in the building sector, for over 15 years. This study was therefore designed to employ the life cycle assessment approach to quantify the efforts of Shenzhen's public building practices, and evaluate its real 'achievement' by quantifying the CO 2 emissions (CO 2 e) reduction over the past decades. The results show that the total CO 2 e from public buildings sectors in Shenzhen city have increased rapidly, from 15 Mt in 2005 to 22 Mt CO 2 e in 2016, because of the fast growth of public buildings' construction activities. However, current 'low-carbon' efforts have only reduced CO 2 e by approximately 0.5 Mt annually over the past decade, and thus could not offset the rapid growth arising from the increase in floor area. This is hardly enough to contribute proportionally to the city's overall reduction target. In addition, we conducted a scenario analysis to determine the optimal mitigation measures. The results imply that accelerating the energy-saving renovation of existing buildings is a promising approach and could meet the pressing mitigation needs. These findings could not only inform evidence-based policies to promote the adoption of energy-saving building technologies in Shenzhen, but also shed light on sustainable transition in other megacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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