Developing Sustainable and Clean Energy for Environmental Issues in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey has dynamic economic development and rapid population growth. It also has macro-economic, and especially monetary, instability. The net effect of these factors is that Turkey’s energy demand has grown rapidly almost every year and is expected to continue growing, but the investment necessary to cover the growing demand has not been forthcoming at the desired pace. On the other hand, meeting energy demand is of high importance in Turkey. However, exploiting the country’s large energy efficiency potential is also vital. Air pollution is a significant problem and, as the government’s projections show, carbon emissions could rise sharply if current trends continue. Turkey’s geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of most of these renewable energy sources. Over the last few decades, the numbers of Turkish citizens living in the eastern part of country have migrated to the western part of the country. This caused some problems in the energy utilization and environmental pollution in the western regions in Turkey. For this reason, in the coming decades, global environmental issues could significantly affect patterns of energy use in Turkey.