Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2018), pp. 153–162. DOI 10.3233/AJW-180027 Comparing Carbon Dioxide Reduction Strategies in Iran and the European Union Transportation Sector Fardin Eskaf Department of Environmental Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran * fardin.eskaf@ikco.ir Received September 7, 2017; revised and accepted March 4, 2018 Abstract: The transportation sector represents a major proportion of the global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Fossil fuels supply over 95% of total energy used by the world transportation sector and this sector is responsible for 23% of the world energy related GHGs emissions. Factors such as number of mobile sources (vehicles), variety of technologies, many consumers with various driving behaviour, and variety of fuels (from conventional to alternative with different quality) have caused a more complicated situation for decision makers aiming to develop policies of CO 2 emissions reduction in this sector. This study compares European and Iranian experience in developing carbon dioxide-related policies in transportation sector. Vehicle production in Iran has grown dramatically during the last decade. But, due to the high energy subsidies on the local market, weak technical regulations, and low access to new technologies, Iranian automakers have not enhanced the fuel effciency of new products as their global counterparts. It is expected that fuel demand in Iran will grow along with the growth of the motorization rate and fuel effciency level of the road feet. Benchmarking with the European policies along with the SWOT analysis has concluded four strategies as the core concept of this analysis: mandatory regulation versus voluntary agreement, CO 2 emissions versus fuel consumption regulation, approaching effcient fscal policies (taxes for conventional and subsidies for low carbon fuels), and dieselization of the LDVs feet. The ffth strategy, as national fuel economy regulation, should be addressed to coordinate the others. In this regards, a set of policy packages should be developed relating to governmental institutions. It should be mentioned that increasing public awareness should be addressed as the basic approach of any strategic roadmap in the country. Key words: Transportation, CO 2 , policy, Iran, European Union. Introduction US Environment Protection Agency reports that around 90% of the fuels consumed in the transportation sector are petroleum based – mainly gasoline and diesel (Harrington, 2008). So, the nearly complete dependence of the sector on oil products generates two sorts of concerns: security of oil supply, given the rising needs of transportation, and worries about climate change combined with the longer standing problems of congestion, noise and urban pollution (Capros et al., 2008). Regarding the IPCC, the share of total GHG emissions by transportation has risen considerably. The growth rate of the sector is the highest among end-user sectors and reach around 12 Gt CO 2 eq/yr by 2050 (IPCC, 2014). The share of non-OECD countries was 36% in 2006 and the IPCC predicts that this will increase rapidly to 46% by 2030 if current trends continue (IPCC, 2007). The IEA reports that transport sector was responsible for producing 7.452 Gt of CO 2 and accounted with 23% of the total CO 2 emissions in 2014 (IEA, 2016).