Nature Climate Change, Published online: 12 September 2024; doi:10.1038/s41558-024-02131-x
The energy used to heat or cool buildings does not only contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but also to other direct forms of heat exchange between buildings and their environment. A study now quantifies the feedback between buildings and their surrounding temperatures, yielding more reliable estimates of the contribution of heating and cooling to local and global warming and better estimates of regional energy demands.