Mahdi Rostami - Assistant Professor, Petroleum University of Technology

Energy efficiency is the most significant energy policy instrument to achieving energy security, economic and environmental goals specifically in the coming low‐carbon energy future. While European Union as a major regional economic integration and major fossil fuel consumer has focused on energy efficiency as a key element of energy policy for a long time and designed and implemented several energy efficiency policies such as IEA 25 energy efficiency policies and EU Energy Efficiency Directive , ECO countries with a consumption of about 630 million tones oil equivalent in 2017 relying mainly on fossil fuels (more than 93%) have no clear and comprehensive energy policies at the organization level. The comparative study shows that although Turkey as a member of IEA has implemented significant energy efficiency policies and is among the lowest energy intensive countries, most of the ECO countries are highly energy intensive. On the other hand high fossil fuel consumption in ECO countries such as Iran put this country among the most CO2 emitters globally. Thus, building on EU experience, it seems that designing and implementing a comprehensive energy efficiency policy will benefit all ECO countries in terms of energy security and environmental objectives.

ECO Countries, EU Energy Policy, Energy Efficiency, CO2 Emissions