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Energy efficiency can help facing the climate crises. Yet the energy intensity has decreased more slowly than required to achieve climate goals. Based on this premise, we build an agent-based model to study the effects of different energy efficiency policies. Policies analysed range from indirect policies – taxes, incentives, and subsidies – to direct technological policies, where a public research laboratory invests in R&D to establish a new technological energy efficiency paradigm. Results reveal that, although most of the policies effectively reduce energy intensity, the research lab is the most efficient in promoting energy efficiency without negative impacts on macroeconomic and public finance conditions. However, the success of this policy requires a long-term commitment, highlighting the importance of complementing this strategy with more "ready to use" measures. The findings also indicate that most policies do not induce significant macroeconomic rebound effects. Concerns about macroeconomic rebound effects may likely be overstated. • Improvements in energy efficiency help face the ongoing climate and energy crises. • Yet, energy intensity has declined more slowly than needed to meet climate goals. • The paper builds an agent-based model to study different energy efficiency policies. • Indirect policies work but are outperformed by direct technological policies. • The macroeconomic rebound effect induced by most of the policies is rather small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy crisis caused by climate change is the most significant challenge of the 21st century. Single-objective and multi-objective optimization studies for buildings often only consider the building itself, without considering the impacts of climate change. However, in the future, energy-efficient design and appropriate operating parameters will be crucial considerations in the face of global climate change. This paper aims to discuss the impact of climate change in the humid-hot region over the past 60 years on the energy consumption of office buildings and propose countermeasures. Firstly, the meteorological data of Guangzhou from 1960 to 2020 is statistically analyzed, and four typical meteorological years and corresponding air conditioning design days are established. Secondly, Energyplus is used to simulate the building's energy consumption, and the energy consumption factors are analyzed for sensitivity using jEplus. Finally, a multi-objective optimization is performed using jEPlus + EA with the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). The results found that climate change led to a significant increase in the duration of high outdoor temperatures during summer. Specifically, the daily dry-bulb temperature for air conditioning design increased by 0.4–0.7 °C, and due to climate change, the energy consumption of the office building increased by about 4.6 %. The main factor affecting the cooling energy consumption in summer was the indoor cooling set point (8.29%–30%), infiltration air volume (1.0%–8.6%), fresh air volume (3.2%–16.06%), the glazing solar transmission rate (1.25%–9.0%), building orientation (0%–1.43%), and relatively small influence of envelope insulation performance. The operation scheme determined by multi-objective optimization can reduce the cooling energy consumption of the building by 10.6%–16.8%, which can mitigate the rise in energy consumption resulting from climate change to a greater extent. [Display omitted] • Discuss the impact of climate change over the past 60 years on the energy consumption of office buildings. • There was a significant increase in the duration of high outdoor temperatures during the summer. • Multi-objective optimization is performed using jEPlus + EA. • Climate change caused energy consumption to increase by about 4.6 %. • Optimal solutions can reduce the cooling energy consumption of the building by 10.6%–16.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]