Page 23 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Mehmet Emin Birpınar - Ersin Gürtepe

On the other side, at the high-level general assembly of the 27th Conference
of the Parties on Climate Change (COP27), H.E. Murat Kurum, the Minister of
Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change of the Republic of Türkiye,
shared the updated nationally-determined contribution (NDC) of Turkiye with
the world (Cop27 Summit, 2022). Accordingly, Türkiye has increased its NDC
from 21 per cent, which was announced in 2015, to 41 per cent by the year 2030.
This value also means approximately 500 million tons less emissions than it
would be on an annual basis by 2030. Considering that the national emissions
of Türkiye are currently around 520 million tons, the magnitude of this value
can be seen more easily. The total amount of emissions prevented between
2023 and 2030 is expected to be over 2.7 billion tons. Undoubtedly, it will
be possible to achieve these reductions by carrying the green transformation
activities carried out for many years to a further point.
While giving the nationally-determined contribution of Türkiye, it was
shared that the emissions of Türkiye would peak for the first time in 2038 at
the latest, and it was highlighted that reductions would be achieved after this
date in line with the
“Green development vision” according to the carbon-neutral target
by 2053, and hence it was declared once again that green transformation
is a development vision in Türkiye (Turkey’s New Nationally-Determined
Contribution, 2022).

Green Transformation in Energy
In Türkiye, which is gradually developing and growing, energy has become
an inseparable part of life. We use energy efficiently in many areas such as
transportation, heating, cooling, production, lighting and cooking.
In line with the developments in our world, where the digital and technological
revolution is accelerating and electrification is becoming increasingly widespread
in many fields from transportation to air-conditioning, electrical power generation
has been emphasized, thus allowing for a regular increase in the installed power
capacity of Türkiye to meet the increasing consumer demand. According to data
of December 2022 obtained from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources,
the total installed power of Türkiye has been increased to 103,809 MW with an
increase of more than 3.5 times in the last 20 years.
In order to reduce dependence on foreign sources and to fight effectively
against climate change, renewable resources have been emphasized, and
in this context, approximately 60% of the increase in installed power has
been obtained from renewable resources, namely, green energy. At this
point, alternative means such as solar, wind, biomass and geothermal have
also been introduced to the renewable resources produced only from

8 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate