Dr. Brahmanand Mohanty of Energy Program was invited by the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GABC) to moderate a session on “Clean energy, building operations and systems” at the Regional Roundtable for Asia Pacific on 5th September which was organized as a part of the Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2019.
The Roundtable aimed at:
- Facilitating regional cooperation through technical knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer exchange in best practice policies, tools and data;
- Providing networking opportunity to foster match-making between GABC members for cooperation to accelerate zero-emission, efficient, and resilient buildings and construction sector solutions across the region; and
- Raising ambition levels related to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The expected outcome of the Roundtable was to identify priorities, pillars, and milestones for an Asia-Pacific regional roadmap based on the GABC template and methodology developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and through participant-driven collective discussion and input. During the Roundtable, some key points were discussed for the promotion of clean energy, “Energy efficiency needs to be included in the definition of clean energy i.e. the zone, community, and district level need to be incorporated and not just the individual building level. Incentives for both renewable energy and energy efficiency are important to allow flexibility in how to combine both. This also depends on the building type, e.g. high-rise buildings, for instance, need to focus on energy efficiency, and skills are as important as awareness, as are identifying revenue-neutral policies. ”
