There are 68 days left until the Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP15), where world leaders will once again meet to discuss, and hopefully agree upon, a solution to the impending threat of climate change.

Many are anticipating that the Copenhagen summit may be our last chance to come up with an effective solution to the accelerating threat of global climate change.  Many are also anticipating that if we, the U.S., do not take significant steps to curb our greenhouse gas emissions before the conference in December, any efforts to reach a substantive deal will be wasted. 

There's a lot of substantive discussion taking place right now about optimal solutions, goals, and potential roadblocks.  But one passage from the COP15 website caught our attention, because it hasn't received a ton of press:

Buildings are responsible for about half the world's emissions, and domestic housing is the most important single source of greenhouse gases. But making a building genuinely zero carbon is extremely expensive, and just focusing on the about 1 per cent of the housing stock that is newly built each year has no effect on the remaining 99 per cent. In Germany a mixture of subsidies, cheap loans and exhortation is succeeding in getting hundreds of thousands of older properties eco-renovated each year to very impressive standards and at reasonable cost.

This is our focus at Energy Circle.  Right now the U.S. is responsible for about 20% of worldwide emissions. Buildings are responsible for 40% of emissions in the U.S. That means that buildings in the U.S. are responsible for about 8% of emissions worldwide.
 
We at Energy Circle are committed to helping you make a difference by making your home more energy efficient.  According to the United Nations, it's the most important thing you can do.  Here's how you can get started.