Zero Carbon Buildings: A Realistic Approach to Climate Adaptation

Abstract

Climate change continues to be a priority on the agendas of countries and governments today. The approach to this issue can gain significant importance in parallel with the severity of the effects caused by the climate crisis in different regions of the world. To minimize the destruction that climate change will cause over the next 50 years, climate adaptation and mitigation strategies are among the leading strategies of all countries. At this point, it is evident that the decisions made within the framework of the Paris Climate Agreement and the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) meetings are extremely guiding and accurate. However, within the framework of these agreements, it is necessary to develop strategies that will ensure the adaptation of existing buildings, as well as new buildings, to achieve the 2050 targets defined for the building sector. This study will discuss strategies to minimize the impacts that buildings constructed in the past decade and those that will be constructed in the next decade will face as part of the existing building stock in 2050. There is a need to evaluate the measures that can be taken today to ensure that buildings constructed according to current regulations, which can be labelled as nearly zero-energy/carbon buildings, are resilient in the 2050 and 2080 scenarios. Within the framework of this study, 2050 and 2080 climate scenarios will be examined, and suggestions will be presented by discussing how adaptable building stock can be achieved in terms of resilience.