Page 68 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 1

Climate Change Crisis And Cities

is to increase the efficiency of products throughout their life cycle, reuse of
waste materials, and research the possibility of on-site recycling of these
waste (Kumar, 2021). Within this framework, the concept of circular economy
focuses on recycling and waste management, and adopts the principles,
“reduce, reuse, and recycle”. Green transformation contributes greatly to
providing resillience to climate change in the cities. The UN estimates that as
part of green transformation, 6 million new employment opportunities can be
created (UN, 2021c).
The use of renewable energy sources
The fossil fuels used in energy sector constitute the main reason for
greenhouse gas emissions, global increase in the average temperatures, and
the ensuing climate change. Thus, applying a sustainable energy program
is of key importance (Kumar, 2021). Therefore, as part of the fight against
climate change in the cities, increasing the use of renewable energy sources
and developing clean production techniques gain a lot of importance.
Especially mitigation of industry-based emissions will provide benefits not
for only climate change and local air quality, but also human health (UNEP,
2022). According to UN figures, in the year 2019, 11.5 new job opportunities
were provided in the field of renewable eneryş. Additionally, solar energy-
based industry offered 3.8 million job opportunities, followed by 2.5 million
employment opportunities in the field of biofuels, nearly 2 million new jobs
in hydroelectricity sector, and 1.2 million job opportunities in the filed of wind
energy (UN, 2021c).
Developing compact urbanization and green transport systems

Within the framework of traditional city planning approach, constructed
environments expand to natural areas, and cities spread out, get overcrowded,
and lose their climate resillience. This approach is characterized by spaces
largely spared for vehicles in the cities, and vehicles running on fossil fuels. In
the increasingly crowded cities this approach causes people to spend more
time in traffic, and different pollutants, especially, greenhouse gas emissions
to increase, and leads to noise and air pollution as well as health problems.
WEF estimates that 1,5 million people will be added to global cities by 2030
(WEF, 2020: 12). This will bring about further demand for housing and city
services. Today, solution towards preventing the expansion of cities and
providing cliamte resillience include compact urbanization and green modes
of transport (Figure 7). In compact urbanization, instead of expanding the
city to natural areas, it is preferred to develop certain areas within the city,
and reusing derelict areas. In the compact city approach, which adopts an
intensive, but balanced development pattern, different regions should be

Year 1 / Issue 1 / Jan 2022 53