Policy Note / Elif Güler, Sercan Sevgili

Excessive use of fossil fuels has led to dire consequences of global warming, in particular with increasing greenhouse gas emissions, causing global surface temperature in the period 2011-2020 to rise by an alarming 1.1 °C above the period 1850-1900. This situation, together with the lack of a production-consumption balance between countries and regions, unsustainable energy use and uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions, causes global warming to accelerate. In particular, the global average temperature of 17.23°C recorded worldwide on July 4, 2023 once again shows that global warming is an urgent threat. This new record concretely demonstrates the effects of climate change and emphasizes the seriousness of the temperature increase. Graph 1 visualizes the global and northern hemisphere temperature anomaly, making it clear that the northern hemisphere has been warming faster than the global value in the last 20 years. This trend strengthens the possibility that this difference may increase further in the coming years. In particular, the Eastern Mediterranean Region has a 20% faster warming rate compared to other basins in the northern hemisphere. This shows that the region is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and is in an urgent situation. In this context, it is inevitable that the effects of global warming will continue to increase not only in the recent past but also in the future.

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