Hello to my valued readers from Yeşil Köşe. Rising electricity prices, increasing energy costs in production, transportation and every aspect of life, natural gas and electricity outages, political and policy crises where energy is a threat, the rapidly warming world and climate crisis, possible food crises that may arise from this climate crisis… These topics have been on our agendas a lot lately, haven’t they? * This week, I will share with you, my valued readers; the reasons for all these energy and climate crises, and how we can achieve our goals of sustainable development and a greener world from today to tomorrow by staying away from fossil fuels and increasing the use of renewable energy sources, with my own comments. Energy, as the infrastructure of industrialization and an indispensable element of daily life, has a very important place on the national and international agenda. * As a result of the technologies developed along with the increase in the world’s population, industrialization and the development of scientific activities, the need for energy is increasing day by day. Energy, which is as important as the environment, water and food, and an indispensable element of societies, is still largely met by fossil resources all over the world. Among these resources, oil and natural gas, which are the most important, have been among the main reasons for political and political crises in the world, and the price increases experienced with these crises have negatively affected the economies of countries that are dependent on foreign energy, especially Turkey. Due to the exhaustibility of energy resources, the existence of external dependency, their costliness and inevitable environmental effects; producing safe, sufficient, cheap and clean energy for countries is among the fundamental problems of economic and social life. When we consider the use of energy resources in terms of our country; when we examine the data of TEİAŞ (Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation) on the installed power and production side, we see that we use imported and domestic energy resources almost half the time. In addition, all of these energy resources that we describe as imported are fossil energy sources, such as coal and natural gas. In other words, they are neither environmentally nor budget-friendly. Most importantly, the resource does not belong to our country... We experienced only one of the possible problems that the use of imported energy resources may create with the natural gas shortage in the first month of 2022; both electricity production and industrial production were interrupted for a few days. Even if they develop beyond our borders and do not directly affect our country today, natural gas crises that occur as a result of political and policy crises are reaching a level that threatens industry and daily life in European countries. Isn’t the fact that we personally experience or witness crises caused by the use of imported energy sources a sign that we need to take faster steps in these matters? * In every period determined by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority in 2022, without even waiting for June and September, electricity prices were increased one after another. It has come to such a point that the cost of electricity, which is included in the “other” expense item in industrial production, has become one of the top main input costs. Why? The reason is that as a country, we use imported, therefore expensive energy sources intensively. If we do not increase the use of domestic and renewable resources, higher electricity bills will probably follow us. The problem is not only economic, but also ecological. Our world is getting warmer, climates are changing rapidly, extreme weather events are making daily life increasingly difficult, and all of these threaten our future. With the zero carbon target and the responsibility we carry for future generations, we should care about the realization of green transformation in energy and take rapid and serious steps in this regard. * Along with growth and development targets, technological investments, industrialization, production, logistics network and population increases will create more demand for energy, and creating the supply to meet this demand, and making investments for the benefit of the country in economic, political and environmental terms while creating the supply will make this growth and development sustainable. As I conclude my article where I address the energy agenda from an economic and ecological perspective; I would like to emphasize once again that the development and widespread use of our country's domestic and renewable energy resources in energy production is very important for ensuring sustainable development and remind you that we all carry this responsibility for a green future. See you next week, stay healthy…

Sidar Anil Ozalp