The challenge of monitoring policy mixes for reducing emissions from buildings

The building sector accounts for about 34% of global energy use and correspondingly 37% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Even leading regions and countries struggle to address these emissions. Well-crafted mixes of public policy initiatives are crucial to progress, but what systems are in place to track existing policy initiatives and their effectiveness? To address this question, we focus on the UN, the EU, Finland and Germany, where existing tracking systems have received little attention from a comparative perspective so far. Utilising desirable dimensions of monitoring and reporting of policy mixes from existing literature, we find that the monitoring systems in focus have become more streamlined and coordinated over time. But policy interactions have not yet been sufficiently considered and different baselines hamper comparability. Such factors hinder policy-makers to understand and adjust the complex policy mix in the buildings sector to deliver effective climate action. Core discipline: Political science/policy sciences.