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Abstract With the surging urbanization process and rapid economic growth in the service industry, carbon emissions released by the commercial building sector have become critical for China's national action towards meeting the "Post Paris" mitigation target. This paper is the first to confirm whether carbon intensity in the commercial building sector decouples from the economic development in service industry via the decomposition and decoupling methods at both the scales of the nation and the top five urban agglomerations [Jing-Jin-Ji (JJJ), Yangtze-River-Delta (YRD), Pearl-River-Delta (PRD), Yangtze-River-Middle-Reach (YRMR), and Cheng-Yu (CY) urban agglomerations] in China during the 2000–2015 period. The key findings indicate the following. The nationwide decoupling status was weak from 2001 to 2005 and then strong from 2006 to 2015. At the scale of urban agglomeration, only four states were observed in the decoupling status, and the order of the decoupling statuses across the different urban agglomerations is as follows: JJJ > CY > YRD > PRD > YRMR (2001–2005), YRD > JJJ > PRD > CY > YRMR (2006–2010), and YRD > YRMR > JJJ > CY > PRD (2011–2015). The carbon Kuznets curves of the commercial building sector successfully reveal the causes of the different decoupling paths across different urban agglomerations. The growing decoupling effects can be attributed to the rapid development of energy conservation projects in the commercial building sector over the past decade. Overall, it is expected that our contribution covers the research gap of decoupling carbon intensity in the commercial building sector from economic growth in the service industry, and our efforts constitute a significant contribution to the analysis of the carbon emission peak in the Chinese commercial building sector. Graphical abstract Decoupling elasticities of carbon intensity in the China's commercial building sector at the scales of the nation and urban agglomerations from 2001 to 2015. Image 1000 Highlights • Presenting the decoupling analysis integrating decomposition and decoupling methods. • Decoupling analysis of commercial buildings and the service industry was performed. • The case areas were China's top five urban agglomerations during the 2000–2015 period. • The decoupling levels of the five urban agglomerations were ranked and analyzed. • A pathway to achieve more significant decoupling effects was discussed and proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributions of different end-use activities to carbon intensity changes in global commercial building operations in (a) 2000–2010 and (c) 2010–2019; (b) impacts of different end-use activities on decarbonizing the operational carbon intensity across different countries in 2000–2019. [Display omitted] • The carbon intensity of commercial building operations in 16 economies declined 1.9 % yr−1 in 2000–2019. • Emission factors and industrial structure were the key to decarbonizing the building operations. • Energy intensity (e.g., heating: −14.3 kgCO 2 /m2/yr) has pushed global decarbonization since the 2010 s. • Decarbonization level in 16 economies was 230.3 MtCO 2 /yr with a decarbonization efficiency of 10.1%; • Electricity decarbonization will be critical to achieving global carbon neutrality in commercial buildings. Building operations will be the most critical step in completing the "last mile" of global carbon neutrality. To seek the best practical path to decarbonize commercial building operations, this study assesses the decarbonization progress of commercial building operations in 16 countries over the last two decades considering socioeconomic, technical, climatic and end-use factors through the decomposing structural decomposition method. The results reveal that (1) the average carbon intensity of commercial building operations in 16 countries has maintained an annual decline of 1.94% throughout the period 2000–2019, and emission factors and industrial structures were generally the key to decarbonizing commercial building operations; (2) energy intensity effects have started to promote global decarbonization in commercial building operations since 2010, with contributions from space heating [-14.33 kg of carbon dioxide per square meter per year (kgCO 2 /m2/yr)], service lighting (-5.29 kgCO 2 /m2/yr), appliances and others (-2.85 kgCO 2 /m2/yr), and space cooling (-1.24 kgCO 2 /m2/yr); and (3) the total decarbonization of commercial building operations worldwide was 230.28 mega-tons of carbon dioxide per yr, with a decarbonization efficiency of 10.05% in 2001–2019. Moreover, the robustness of this decarbonization assessment is tested using the typical index decomposition analysis and the decarbonization strategies of global commercial building operations are reviewed. Overall, this study assesses the global historical progress in decarbonizing commercial building operations and closes the relevant gap, and it helps plan the stepwise carbon neutral pathway of future global buildings by the mid-century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]