Here’s a sobering fact: The building sector is dragging down global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

According to Yamina Saheb, lead author of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), policies that favor wasteful new construction, and do little to encourage environmentally minded retrofits, have hindered the building industry’s ability to curb its footprint. The report, which was written by more than 270 researchers who were convened by the United Nations in 2019, states that global emissions from buildings reached 12 gigatons that year, or 21% of global emissions worldwide. Some estimates show that percentage to have almost doubled since.