Buildings As An Underlying Cause of Global Warming

Introduction

Progressive deterioration of global warming and protection of environment are important areas of interest for the whole world. Buildings as an underlying cause are responsible for global warming. Edwards (1996) pointed out that building has a key role to play as they are one of the major sources of energy consumption. And he (1996) also stated with some statistics to support this point that buildings account for about half of all global – energy, water, and raw materials as well as in the EU (Edwards, 1996, P. xiv). And another data is that buildings constitute about 45 per cent of carbon-dioxide emissions (John, 1998, P. xi). In addition, buildings should be accountable to most of land loss in agriculture. But it does not mean that we should reduce the amount of construction and if possible, it also hardly to achieve, because both the process and the finish of construction are essential and important to human beings. Not only is Construction the second largest industry in terms of employment, but also buildings have a great influence on the safety and health of people in the home and at work. Professionals and scientists have already recognized the importance of the problem. On the one hand, buildings are essential. On the other hand, the impacts of construction are harmful to our environment. It seems paradox. Therefore, we need to transfer the construction industry to “green”. Briefly, green building can low impact on environment, to the utmost extent save energy and efficiently use resource. Therefore, green building is the best answer, and of course its development is crucial to us. This paper will overview the development of green or sustainable building from different perspectives, by first defining what is gr...

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... and to promote further development, local authorities in China should has a role in encouraging better design through regulation, example and by funding energy advice schemes. Firstly, China already and should push some more compulsory standards in energy conversation of construction through making policies throughout the whole nation. Furthermore, UK government has already aware that they can not expect the private sector to follow green practices if government does not set an example. Thus China government should set more examples of green building, particularly in commercial buildings and be strongly suggested that all of governmental constructions should be “green” first. Lastly, government also should take the effect in funding advice schemes which offer energy guidelines, publicize best practice, and undertake monitoring of the performance of green buildings.