Did German building standards reduce CO2 emissions over the past four decades?

The JRC H2 Air and Climate Unit is please to announce the following seminar:

Title: Did German building standards reduce CO2 emissions over the past four decades?

Speaker: Simone MARTELLI

When: Thursday 14 January, 11:00

Where: Acqua (Building 100, first floor)

The effect of building standards, energy price and income on CO2 emissions and as such energy consumption in the German residential sector is investigated. Energy consumption is first factorised in its most relevant determinants to distinguish between state variables (determined by the dynamical specification of the model, such as the building stock and its quality) and control variables (economic choices regarding the consumption of energy and investments in the stock of buildings). Then, long-run relations and Granger-causality between control variables is studied within a cointegrated VAR approach. The analysis with our data time series shows only statistically significant correlation of energy consumption increase with energy price decrease. No direct correlation with income can be proven to be statistically significant, but a trend to invest in larger but more energy-efficient living surface per person is observed, in particular when income and energy prices rise. The data time series did not reveal a long-term effect of the building standards on the investments to increase the energy efficiency of buildings.