# Energy Efficiency Policies to Face Buildings' Climate Change Effects in Paraguay
## 1 Introduction
It should be noted that the option of reducing energy dependence, through the demand reduction, represents an important alternative, mainly for developing countries, which have limited financial resources and too many essential sectors to invest in. This option would contribute to solving the energy sector problems through lower investment costs, assuming that the implementation of EE measures represents lower investment costs than the development of new energy production sources, including the change of the energy matrix or the investment in infrastructure for energy distribution. In the last years, the energy intensity of Latin American countries and the Caribbean have shown a slight decrease since, as previously mentioned, several EE programs are being implemented in the region, such as programs with different scopes and priority levels, which have attained diverse levels of success. Analysing the region, energy market integration is being developed with the most concrete steps in Southern Common Market (Mercado Comun del Sur, MERCOSUR), the main free-trade zone in South America, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela as states members, including also other associated states [7]. Although the energy reforms promoted by MERCOSUR represent significant advances for the region, the results are diverse among the countries [3]. Due to differences in population growth, technology development, economic structure, etc., each country of the region has implemented EE programs with different characteristics and development degrees, according to its own needs and situation. Thus, analysing results and progress levels, Brazil is ranked as advanced, Chile in development and Paraguay at a preliminary stage [6]. This paper aims to provide an assessment of the energy situation of Paraguay highlighting the importance given to EE to achieve sustainable development and as a strategy towards low carbon and low energy-built environment. A description of energy policies, sectors of greater consumption and targets set for increasing EE in the country was developed. An emphasis on the building sector was made to provide a foundation for policy analysis to enhance EE and energy conservation in this economic sector. Furthermore, the barriers identified in energy matters and objectives achieved were highlighted, and the importance of EE for the country was justified. EE policies implemented by Paraguay are presented, and a picture of the country's strategy on energy-related issues is provided as an overview of the historical evolution and the status of energy policy. Research, reports and projects carried out in this area were summarised, as well as a discussion of the main actions, plans, programs and laws launched by the National Government. This paper puts its focus on the building sector too, aiming to demonstrate the importance of EE increasing in this sector in the overall reduction of energy consumption, contributing its results for future public policymaking. Identifying EE as a reliable strategy for reducing energy dependence, the country can focus on this alternative, instead of continuing to build energy generation structures, which continue to promote the existing energy consumption and waste. This research work is structured as follows. Following this Introduction, an analysis of the Paraguayan climate scenario and the effects of the future climate changes on buildings representative of a large part of the Paraguayan built environment are shown in Section 2; the road towards EE in the Republic of Paraguay are described in Section 3. Section 4 presents a review of good practices for Energy Efficiency. Section 5 discusses the results and draws some conclusions and policy implications.