Page 21 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Mehmet Emin Birpınar - Ersin Gürtepe

is surrounded by seas on 3 sides has a great potential thereof. However, the
location of Türkiye, which offers great geographical advantages, as well as its
location in the Mediterranean Basin, which is one of the areas most affected
by climate change, the main issue of today, makes it necessary to prioritize
environmental factors in its policies (UNEP, 2020).
With this belief, the policies that take into account especially the fight against
climate change and the protection of the receiving environments such as air,
water and soil as well as the welfare of the people have been developed and
implemented. In this respect, a great number of practices of Türkiye such as
the zero waste movement, which is an exemplary project on the prevention of
waste for the world, and transition to domestic and renewable energy, energy
efficiency, green hydrogen technologies, domestic solar panel production, low
emission zones in transportation, electric domestic car TOGG, domestic battery
production, air and climate-friendly cycling activities, cleaner production in
industry, green OIZs (organized industrial zones), spread of green district heating
systems, environmental labels in services and products, blue flags, green building
certificates, green star, rooftop solar panels, energy performance certificates in
buildings, grey water use and rainwater harvesting are part of this transformation.
In other words, an unnamed green transformation is already taking place
in Türkiye. In the last year, the name of this transformation was announced
to the public as the “Green Development Revolution” (Directorate of
Communications of Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, 2021). The carbon-
neutral target for the year 2053 that was shared by H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
President of the Republic of Türkiye with the world community at the 76th UN
General Assembly, became a cornerstone in this sense. That is because it is
necessary to realize green transformation in all areas such as energy, industry,
buildings, transportation, waste, and agriculture in order to achieve this goal.
This situation has brought new job opportunities and new prospects and
continues to do so.

Existing infrastructure being strengthened
The Environmental Law of Türkiye, which was developed for the protection
and effective management of the environment, is about to complete its fortieth
year. In order to meet the needs of the age, this law has been comprehensively
revised four times, three of which have been in the last five years, and it has
been rendered compatible with the changing and developing world. Also, the
concept of green growth has been addressed by highlighting the “sustainable
environment” in the 5-year development plans, the top policy document
of Türkiye, and it has been stated that environmentally-friendly activities
would be supported in thematic areas such as “energy, industry, agriculture,
transportation, construction, services and urbanization”.

6 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate