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Sustainability in The Era of Türkiye

Introduction

Environmental issues are at the root of many meteorological disasters and
epidemics that we are facing in today. At the beginning of the second half
of the twentieth century, with the black smoke covering the skies of London
(United Kingdom Meteorological Office), the capital of England and cradle
of industrial transformation, the world’s agenda first paid attention to air
pollution, and then turned to chemical pollution with DDTs used in production
to meet the increasing food demand in a shorter time (Carson, 1962), and
finally the thinning of the ozone layer detected in the south pole attracted all
the attention to the climate crisis, which is the main issue of today.
These crises and growing public pressure brought the leaders together
and opened the door to the organization of an environmental conference
(UN Conference on the Human Environment) under the umbrella of the UN
for the first time on a global basis. The declaration of June 5, as “World
Environment Day”, when the conference with the theme of “Environment
and Human”, emphasizing “the need to protect the environment and natural
resources for a good quality of life”, began in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972
(UN Conference on the Human Environment), became a milestone for the
environment. Subsequently, environmental improvements were achieved,
though partially, by implementing regulations in many areas from biodiversity
to air pollution, from climate change to the management of chemicals, with
international conventions developed (European Environment Agency, 2022;
Presidency of Strategy and Budget 2019; OECD, 2021).

New Trends in Development
The need to transit to growth approaches that emphasize the importance
of using resources effectively and efficiently, rather than the traditional growth
approach “take-use-throw” culture, which is seen as the main reason for all
these negative aspects, has been discussed, and hence, new concepts have
been introduced to the world’s agenda. The first of these concepts is the term
“sustainable development”, which was introduced in the report “Our Common
Future” issued by the World Commission on Environment and Development
in 1987. The concept of sustainable development, which is defined as the
development that meets the needs of the day without compromising the
quality of life of future generations, was adopted in the UN Conference on
Environment and Development held in Rio in 1992 and hence became official
in a sense (UN Earth Summit, 1992).

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 3