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Among the sufficiency, efficiency, and renewable frameworks for reducing energy use and energy-related carbon emissions, Building Energy Sufficiency (BES) is gaining attention from policy makers and engineers. Despite the significant role of the building sector in the success of national energy and climate plans, there is a lack of research on the drivers, technologies, and effective policy instruments required to achieve BES in the building operational phase. To fill this gap, this study presents a systematic review of the definition and paradigm of BES and concludes that BES should address both occupant demand and energy or emissions requirements simultaneously. The characteristics of occupant demand in building services are divided into four dimensions: time and space, quality and quantity, control and adjustment, and flexibility. Technical options regarding the building architecture, the envelope system, and the building energy system are reviewed. Finally, policy implications and recommendations are discussed. The multiple benefits and multidisciplinary nature of BES justify further research and accelerated policy implementation in developed and developing countries. [Display omitted] • Building Energy Sufficiency(BES) are important to address building energy and climate issues, but research is lacking. • Building occupant demand is partial in time and space, diversified and heterogeneous in quality and quantity, and requires adjustment. • Passive and flexible architecture, and building integrated photovoltaics are effective in reducing building demand at the building level. • Decentralized design and operation, and flexible terminals are sufficient measures from building energy systems perspective. • Different policy pathways are recommended for different regions according to their own status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Energy upgrade is promoted by interprovincial coordinating of economy and resource. • Energy upgrade is determined by change of farmers' preference for low-quality energy. • Energy upgrade can be promoted together in agriculture and rural life. Rural energy upgrade in developing countries is an essential part of the world climate mitigation work. To systematically promote rural energy upgrade, we took the case of China and used a spatiotemporal model to investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of energy ladders in agriculture and rural life of developing countries. The proportion of clean energy consumption in agriculture showed an interprovincial competition effect, whereas the proportion of oil consumption in rural life showed a demonstration effect. Severe reliance on coal hinders energy upgrade. Urbanisation has improved the clean level of energy use in agriculture but does not significantly affect the in rural life. Technological progress has increased the proportion of clean energy consumption but has little impact on the proportion of oil and gas consumption. The abundance of coal resources has prompted the massive use of coal and coal-fired power. Energy-use habit promotes the use of all types of energy. Except for that of gas, the consumption of different types of energy in agriculture and rural life mutually promotes. In summary, the development of energy technologies should be established based on the regional resource endowment and economic development level. Also, subsidy principles for clean energy projects should be established based on the development level of the agriculture and residents' income. Rural energy upgrade is coordinated with urbanisation and the modernisation of the agriculture and rural life styles while paying attention to the mutual promotion between the agriculture and rural life. During the change of the energy-use habit under policy guidance, attention must be paid to interprovincial cooperation. Finally, a reasonable market mechanism should be established to promote energy upgrade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of energy use on the planet due to related CO 2 emissions is continuously increasing, despite the adoption of efficiency and decarbonisation policies and widespread environmental awareness. Climate change mitigation will only succeed if the driving forces of consumption and emissions are deeply analysed, and effective means are provided to reverse their trends. To this aim, the Kaya Identity framework is revisited to classify indicators and decomposition studies in the literature. A comprehensive pyramid approach is proposed for the progressive disaggregation and discussion of energy and emissions changes. The approach is applied to the OECD and non-OECD to provide meaningful regional analysis of past trends and future projections according to stated policy intentions. Results show that a hopeful change has already begun in the developed region due to a sustained decrease of the energy intensity and a promising reduction of the carbon intensity. Emerging economies follow the performance of developed nations since 2013, held back by later economic development. Activity slowdown, energy conservation, renewable electrification, efficient power plants and coal phase out appear as the keystones for decarbonisation. As a result, emissions stabilisation could have already been achieved as rises in emerging countries are offset by drops in developed nations. However, more stringent climate policies, especially targeting carbon drivers, are urgently needed to enable emissions reductions compatible with a global temperature increase of 1.5°C. • Classification of indicators and studies in the framework of Kaya Identity. • Definition of an Emissions Indicators Pyramid for analyses standardisation. • Activity slowdown and cleaner electricity drive emissions drop in the OECD since 2007. • Hopeful efficiency and carbon intensity changes in developing nations since 2013. • Energy intensity must be halved and carbon intensity quartered in 2040. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing energy efficiency is an important goal of climate change mitigation policies. Promoting energy efficiency projects in developing countries has faced several barriers, preventing optimal investments. One of the main barriers has been the lack of internationally recognized indices to compare projects across countries. In this era of global political turbulence and a looming trade-war that will likely lead to unjustified tariffs, it is critical to provide publicly available robust indices for investors. We construct the Energy Efficiency Country Attractiveness Index to evaluate countries' competitiveness in terms of energy efficiency potentials and related investment risks to aid investment decision-making in the oil and gas sector. Our index includes 30 indicators congregated in four pillars covering political, economic, social and technological factors, combined by means of Fuzzy measures and Choquet integral according to the preferences of a panel of experts. Although experts consider the economic and technological factors as the most important elements affecting investment in the energy related projects and they are moderately tolerant following disjunctive behaviour in dealing with the political, economic, social, and technological criteria, squared correlation analysis shows that, at least for OPEC countries, the political pillar is the crucial one in shaping the composite index. • We construct Energy Efficiency Country Attractiveness Index for OPEC member countries. • We aggregate indicators covering political, economic, social, and technological (PEST) dimensions. • Indicators are combined using Choquet integral based on fuzzy measures and experts' elicitation. • Experts identify economic and technological factors as the most important elements affecting energy investments. • Experts are moderately tolerant following disjunctive behaviour in dealing with PEST criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]