Deriving global carbon budgets for the Swiss built environment

In order to limit global warming, remaining carbon budgets have been defined by the IPCC in 2018. In this context translating global goals to local realities implicates a set of different challenges. Standardized methodologies of allocation can support a target-cascading process. On the other hand, local strategies and norms are not currently designed to directly respond to limited carbon budgets in a 2050 horizon. The life cycle assessment of buildings implicates an intricate cross-industry and cross-border carbon accounting. For these reasons, effective and aligned carbon targets are needed to support and guide all actors in the construction sector. This research aims at addressing these challenges by developing a new methodology of allocation of a global carbon budget at different scales using the Swiss built environment as a case study. This approach allows the assessment of current best practices in regards to limited carbon budgets. Results show misalignment of global goals with current practices at all levels and present the magnitude of effort that would be required to have a chance to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C.