Page 83 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

Ayça Doğaner

Energy plays an important role for cities. The increase in population,
the change in consumption habits, and the increase in accommodation
opportunities have not only increased, but also changed the role of energy.
Energy, which has been important throughout history has recently become
even more important. Rapid changes in industry, economy, trade and
informatics have increased the need for energy. The relevant need for energy
is met through fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases, resulting in
global environmental disasters. The use of fossil fuels causes natural disasters
through climate change, which has led to the tendency towards different and
natural varieties of energy. In this respect, during the creation of resilience
cities, the wide use of natural resources should be preferred.
Natural disasters first and foremost, affect the region where they happen,
also have a great impact on the whole country. Every citizen in a country is
affected by natural disasters in some way, and these effects may have a social
or economic nature. Moreover, meeting the economic damage in the region
of a natural disaster as well as the spending made by the state to provide a
recovery in the region constitute a big financial burden. Practices to prevent
the negative impacts of things like earthquake risk, floods, droughts and
climate change result in a high cost.
United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) was formed
in 1999 due to the effects of the disasters around the world. The UNDDR
report concerning the economic losses, poverty and disasters in 1998-2017
investigates the economic losses and deaths in the relevant years. During
these years, due to climate and geophysical disasters, 1.3 million people lost
their lives, and 4.4 billion people got injured, lost their homes or got displaced
and became extremely poor. Most of the deaths resulted from geophysical
phenomenon such as earthquakes and tsunamis, while 91% of all disasters
were caused by floods, storms, drought, heat waves and other extreme
weather conditions. During these years, the countries suffering from these
disasters experienced economic losses of 2.908 billion US dollars. 2.245 billion
US dollars of this cost, which makes up 77% of the total cost, was experienced
due to climate related disasters. This loss is 68%, that is, 895 billion US dollars
higher than the loss of 1.313 billion US dollars between the years 1978 and
1997. Overall, the losses recorded due to extreme weather conditions have
increased by 151 % between these two twenty-year periods (UNDRR, 2018).
The investments made in cities are important not only for the prevention
of future potential negative effects of climate change or natural disasters, but
also for a social and humane development for future years as well as providing
local and inter-city collaboration (Zimmermann, 2011: 4-5).

69 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate