# Energy Efficiency Policies to Face Buildings' Climate Change Effects in Paraguay
## 3 Review of Paraguayan Actions
### The Road Toward EE in Paraguay
This is a concern for the country's leaders because the supply of the main resources used is not always ensured since it is estimated that if urgent infrastructure investments are not made, the country's energy situation could become critical before 2030, considering the growing and sustained energy demand. To establish the course of the energy sector, the \"Energy Policy Paraguay 2040\" was approved in October 2016 by Presidential Decree N\({}^{\circ}\). 6092/2016 [54]. This policy defines the actions to be implemented over the next 25 years, with short-, medium- and long-term vision and objectives, as well as specific strategies and actions. Five superior objectives were set: guarantee energy security, ensure access to quality energy for the entire population, widen the use of national energy sources, consolidate Paraguay's position as an axis of regional energy integration, and promote the importance of energy in the population and its sustainable use as a factor of integral development. Afterwards, general and specific objectives for each energy sub-sector of the country were set. Subsequently, three strategic axes were defined with ten action plans, followed by instruments for each action plan, goals and deadlines to achieve them. Within the framework of this paper, it is important to highlight the efficiency and sustainability strategic axe, where EE is included as an action plan with 11 instruments. Some of the goals and deadlines set are described in Table 1. It is worth noting that most of the goals in this action plan are planned to be achieved in the short term [43]. According to an analysis made by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [39], the barriers hindering the development of EE actions in the country are institutional, financial and cultural. Regarding institutional and financial barriers, the authors highlighted that the CNEE does not have enough authority nor own financial funds to accomplish all its responsibilities. Table 1 also depicts the cultural barriers. Those authors concluded that the country needs an adequate legal framework for the implementation of the PNEE, requires a more sustainable energy matrix and needs to promote educational training to achieve an energy culture and more rational use of energy. In general, the aforementioned barriers agree with the barriers to energy efficiency identified in other countries, which can be found in review in [55]. An important point to be analysed is the final consumers lack awareness about the rational use of energy. Several campaigns and dissemination of the advantages of rational energy use are activities which have been carried out continuously in the country, and they represent one of the first actions developed within the plan to promote EE. Likewise, the benefits of using more efficient equipment have been well promoted; nonetheless, it still stands out as a barrier due to their high costs compared to less efficient equipment. Therefore, Paraguay should consider some initial system of subsidies to expand the use of more efficient appliances. These mentioned campaigns are focused on the replacement of high energy consumption appliances by more efficient ones. However, other efficient options could be to promote the advantages that represent, for example, the buildings sector, the introduction of passive cooling systems, improvements in the thermal performance of the envelope or the use of bioclimatic architecture. As already mentioned, Paraguay has a high value of final energy intensity when compared to other countries in the region. Nonetheless, Figure 3 shows that this indicator has decreased over time, which can be interpreted as an improvement in the country's energy efficiency [56]. However, Paraguay shows a lag in the implementation of EE policies and actions, due to the abundance of primary energy sources. Despite this, in the last years, a clear awareness has begun to emerge concerning the importance and benefits of EE.