IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-62675-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mitigating emissions and costs through demand-side solutions in Chinese residential buildings

Author

Listed:
  • Kairui You

    (Beijing Institute of Technology
    Basic Science Center for Energy and Climate Change)

  • Yan Li

    (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
    Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Weiguang Cai

    (Chongqing University)

  • Lulu Zhang

    (Beijing Institute of Technology
    Basic Science Center for Energy and Climate Change)

  • Zhengxuan Liu

    (Delft University of Technology)

  • Wei Feng

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Yi-Ming Wei

    (Beijing Institute of Technology
    Basic Science Center for Energy and Climate Change)

Abstract

The building sector plays a pivotal role in climate change mitigation. By regulating the demand for services and products from supply sectors, building sector can contribute to decarbonization. To assess the decarbonization and cost-saving potential of demand-side solutions for China’s residential building sector, this study develops a demand-side solution framework and an end-use technology model. The model covers the building sector and major supply sectors, considering the heterogeneous impacts of demand-side solution measures on different supply sectors. Here we show that the most optimistic cost-effective demand-side solution can reduce cumulative CO₂ emissions by 47% (42.21 Gt CO₂-eq), while achieving a 16% saving in the net present value of costs over the period 2020−2060. Additionally, results indicate that the demand-side solution enable China’s rural residential buildings to achieve carbon neutrality without carbon dioxide remove options, while simultaneously mitigating uncertainties in reaching carbon neutrality targets.

Suggested Citation

  • Kairui You & Yan Li & Weiguang Cai & Lulu Zhang & Zhengxuan Liu & Wei Feng & Yi-Ming Wei, 2025. "Mitigating emissions and costs through demand-side solutions in Chinese residential buildings," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62675-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62675-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62675-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-62675-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62675-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.