RESNET Named to United Nations Panel on Addressing Improved Energy Performance in the Next International Climate Change Treaty

The Kyoto Climate Change Protocol gave the United Nations' United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) the responsibility for implementing the international climate treaty. Kyoto is set to expire in 2011. One of the failings of the protocol was that it did not inadequately effect building energy performance. The United Nations is in the process of negotiating the successor treaty to Kyoto. It is expected that the U.S., China and India will be the parties of the next treaty,

To ensure that the building sector is adequately covered in the successor treaty, the United Nations has formed the Sustainable Buildings & Construction Initiative (UNEP SBCI) that will make recommendations to the UNEP and the national leaders that will be negotiating the new climate change treaty. RESNET has been named to serve on the UNEP SBCI. Other organizations representing the U.S. on the panel are Natural Resources Defense Council and the US Green Building Council.

This presents a great opportunity for RESNET and the U.S. rating industry. If the next international climate change treaty adequately recognizes the contribution of the building energy performance to combating climate change then it will hasten the development of a global market for the sale of emissions savings from improved building energy performance.

The next meeting of the SBCI will be in Washington, DC on April , 2009. Steve Baden, Executive Director of RESNET will be making a presentation to the group.

The United Nation's Sustainable Buildings & Construction Initiative has released the "Assessment of Policy Instruments for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Buildings" to assist in the adoption of policies to foster higher building energy performance. The assessment finds that energy use in buildings is "one of the key issues to address in order to meet the climate change challenge. No other individual sector has the same impact in terms of energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. No other sector has such a high potential for drastic emission reductions …"

To download the assessment click on United Nations Building Energy Performance Policy Assessment.