The Council of the European Union has agreed to tighten carbon emissions regulations for the construction industry, with the goal that all buildings in the EU, new and old, will be "zero emission buildings" by 2050.

In a statement, the Council said it agreed with the European Commission's proposal to amend the Buildings Energy Performance Directive, under which all new buildings should be zero-emission buildings from 2030 and existing buildings should be converted to zero-emission buildings by 2050.

According to the EU website, a zero-emission building is a building with a very high level of energy performance, very low energy consumption and all renewable energy sources, with no carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

However, exceptions may be made for some categories of buildings, such as "historic buildings, places of worship or buildings used for national defense purposes," the statement said.

In line with the EU's plan to achieve a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030, the European Commission proposed in December last year to amend the Building Energy Performance Directive to further raise the standard of "near zero emission buildings" to "zero emission buildings", requiring that the proportion of renewable energy consumed by buildings be changed from "most" to "all". Member states are required to submit their building emission reduction plans to the European Commission, which is responsible for monitoring the progress of the construction and renovation of "zero emission buildings" in each country.