Emerging Actions And Energy Strategies For Sustainable Development Of Sakarya City, Turkey: A SWOT Analysis

Background: Turkey has been one of the earliest participants of the international climate policy process, since the Ministerial Conference on Atmospheric Pollution and Climate Change held in 1989. The country has prepared strategy documents, actions plans, sectoral policies and projects to detect and adapt climate change effects. However, any of this has not turned into a main plan to support climate change mitigation on an international scale. The purpose of this paper is to identify local climate change mitigation strategies of Sakarya city, Turkey by strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. For this purpose, relevant information were gathered from Covenant of Mayors, greenhouse gas inventories of the city, National Energy Eciency Action Plan, online workshop with 44 local stakeholders from private sector and local universities held on 13.10.2020. Results: Transportation sector action plans proposed within SWOT analysis promise to decrease local transportation-based emissions by 27% compared to 2017 and by 26% compared to 2030 business as usual (BAU) Scenario. Buildings sector action plans proposed within SWOT analysis promises to decrease local building-sector based emissions by 20% compared to 2017 and by 33% compared to 2030 BAU Scenario. All mitigation strategies proposed within SWOT analysis promises to decrease local total emissions by 24% compared to 2017 and by 28% compared to 2030 BAU Scenario. Conclusion: The results emphasize the importance of the cross-link between local adaptation and mitigation in terms of energy demand and energy-based emissions on national and international scale. This paper proposes that developing complete greenhouse gas inventories by accurate data within current technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and formulating climate change targets accordingly is the key to achieve the adaptation of local mitigation plans. In conclusion, it is emphasized that efforts to monitor, to report and to develop local mitigation legislations will determine the success rate of national sustainable development goals.


Introduction
The last decade has seen a critical level of global warming between 0.8 and 1.2 degrees Celsius representing alarming anthropogenic degradation of climate system (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Summary for policymakers 2018). The Paris Agreement aims to limit this warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid dangerous degradation levels (Paris Agreement 2015). Recent climate change mitigation studies support that the world must commit to a rapid decarbonisation agenda to reach the goal of Paris Agreement (Kriegler, E et  Burning fossil fuel resources for electricity and heat is the main driver of climate change (Dmitrii, B et al. 2021, Hanna, B et al. 2020). The records indicate that emissions from these sectors have reached to a historic value, 33.1 Gt CO2eq in 2019 (International Energy Agency, CO 2 emissions 2019). However, the latest data show that global energy based CO2 emissions dropped dramatically in the rst quarter of 2020, due to the declines in global energy demand by the pandemic recession in global economic activity and mobility. It is estimated that the lowest value since 2010 will be recorded by the end of 2020, 30.6 Gt, almost 8% lower than the historic value in 2019 (International Energy Agency, Global Energy Review 2020). In this context, structural decline in emissions must be at the of political agenda to avoid a rebound as the world comes out the pandemic recession.
The future of energy demand and energy-based emissions are dependent on climate change adaptation actions by all levels of governments from local to national. There is a widespread agreement that adaptation comprises of interactions between social, cultural, economic processes by stakeholders and local governments (Liu, Y et al. 2020). Therefore, in order to mitigate climate change with resilient communities, it is required to understand how action plans work locally (Barnett, J 2010).
The city encompasses a total area of 4.823 square kilometers, an area which had a population of 1,029,650 in 2019 and a population density of 211 inhabitants per square kilometer. The population of the city increased by 18.7% in 2019 and continues to increase due to labor demands in rapidly growing industry sector (Turkish Statistical Institute. Population, Annual Growth Rate and Sex Ratio 2019).
Agriculture and industry have an important role in the city's economy. The share of agriculture and industry sectors in employed population of the city were reported 17% and 24% respectively. Sakarya is one of the developing cities of Turkey with 1.6% share in the country's gross domestic product (Republic of Turkey Sakarya Governorship, Brie ng II 2019).

Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality (SMM) is a member of Covenant of Mayors which entered into force
in 2018 to pursue the efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions on a local scale and strengthen the national response to the threat of climate change. In this context, reducing emissions at least 40% by 2030 and transition to cleaner and more secure energy future have become urgent goals of the city in the short and medium term. In this paper, urgent action plans to achieve local climate change targets were proposed by conducting a "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis.

Materials And Methods
The SWOT analysis is a technique rst presented by Albert Humphrey in the 1960s for decision making for complex strategic situations (Learned, EP 1969). The technique aims to develop action plans to increase strengths and to reduce or eliminate weaknesses by bene ting from opportunities and preventing threats (Dyson, RG 2004).
In this paper, the SWOT analysis technique was used to analyse the energy-based greenhouse gas emissions situation in Sakarya city, Turkey and to develop local action plans for reducing local emissions and contributing the national climate change targets. The strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats were identi ed by gathering the main points of Covenant of Mayors, greenhouse gas inventories of Sakarya city, climate change targets of National Energy E ciency Action Plan and outcomes of an online workshop with local stakeholders held on 13.10.2020. The workshop provided different opinions from 44 participants from city universities, local governmental agencies and local nongovernmental organizations. Mitigation activities and priority levels to be implemented within a sustainable energy action plan for the city were determined within the scope of the following working groups: buildings and industry, transportation and renewable energy (Table 1). Greenhouse gas emission assumptions for the targeted year 2030 were made based upon population growth rate, building and service sector growth rate, energy consumption trends in the last decade and legislative changes in the jurisdiction of SMM.

Transportation
Sakarya Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory 2019 indicated that transportation sector is responsible for 27.5% of total emissions of the city with an energy consumption record 4,867,923 MWh. Growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions by transportation units were recorded 1% by municipal diesel fuelled vehicle eet, 2% by municipal electric vehicle eet, 3% public transport diesel fuelled vehicle eet, 3% public transport electric vehicle eet, 1.5% private diesel fuelled vehicles, 1% private diesel fuelled logistical vehicles, 1% private gasoline powered vehicles and 1% private LPG vehicles ( Figure 1 reducing tra c congestion in cities: measures to deter entry into city centers, parking lot cautions, dissemination of smart transportation system applications expanding public transportation This paper proposes urgent local transport action plans for Sakarya city in Table 2 on the basis of SWOT analysis results in Table 1.
Main transport plan of Sakarya city was put into practice in 2011. The city has experienced rapid growth in urbanization, industry and tra c density since then. Therefore, it is urgent to put Action Plan 1 in place in parallel with zoning plans of the city. The owner and implementer of this plan is SMM and the key for the success here is to increase the number of experienced staff in the eld.
Public transportation utilization rate of Sakarya city was recorded 9% in 2019. The target of Action Plan 2 is to increase this rate to a minimum record 35% by 2024. The priority actions within this plan is to optimize public transportation routes, establish new public transport lines for urban transformation areas, increase the number of public buses, transfer new technologies and build a rail system. The number of private transportation vehicles in the city are more than the number of public transportation vehicles-1050 private buses, 632 private minibuses and 362 taxis (Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality. Strategic Plan 2020-2024). The very low public utilization rate, 9%, indicates that local people mostly prefer private transportation vehicles. The results of the workshop indicate that private transportation vehicles provide time savings in comparison with public transport modes. Action Plan 2 proposes to improve public transportation with new public transit modes and reduce at least 50 MtCO 2 eq of transportation-based emissions. Current technologies entering the transit industry offer great improvements in fuel economy of vehicles. Action Plan 3 targets to achieve considerable reductions in eet fuel consumption by changing eet buses and minibuses with new vehicles, more e cient vehicles in the short term and hybrid-electric vehicles in the medium term. It is expected to save 1,157 tCO2eq and 42,716 tCO2eq transportation-based emissions by low carbon transformation and by hybrid-electric transformation in public transport eet respectively.
It is a fact that switching from conventional polluting vehicles to electric powered vehicles is a near future trend driven primarily by growing concerns about climate change. However, the transformation is likely to be time consuming and uncertain in locations where charging process is more di cult. In Sakarya city, fast-charging stations just emerged in some locations like shopping malls, hotels and highway side facilities. Action Plan 4 targets to support infrastructure studies to extend electric vehicle transformation in the city. The success of all the action plans above is depended on public awareness and acceptance. Activities to improve the social infrastructure to develop and/or transform transportation modes are vital for green mobility. Safe and economic training is a powerful social infrastructure tool of transportation to reduce use of fossil fuels and transport-based emissions. Action Plan 8 targets to train all drivers in the city and in particular drivers of public transportation modes. Current researches indicate that e cient driving behaviours can reduce use of fossil fuels by 5% and 10% for moderate driving styles and by almost 20% for aggressive driving styles (Gonder, J et al. 2011). Training passengers and pedestrians is also a powerful tool to extend public transportation modes, bike transport and pedestrian transport. Action Plan 9 targets to organize training activities at schools for raising social awareness of young people of the society and to organize bike events to incentivize local people to cycling.
Sakarya city has a favourable topological structure for cycling. The municipal corporation developed a bicycle share system called SAKBIS which provides 110 bikes and 15 stations in different locations of the city. The results of the workshop indicate that the application received public acceptance and reached over 120 thousand accesses (Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality. Strategic Plan 2020-2024). Action Plan 5 targets to stimulate cycling and discouraging the use of private cars. In this context, urgent actions are determined to improve the physical infrastructure as well as the physical. Building new cycle ways, bike parking and bike stations are the prior actions since cycling is one of the developing transport modes of the city. One of the key outcomes of the workshop is that many local people's perceptions of road safety acts a signi cant barrier to cycling. Therefore, the next action must be establishment of new bike friendly tra c regulations in the city. Besides, integration of SAKBIS with the other public transport modes is also an urgent action to discourage the use of private cars.
Walking is the oldest transportation mode and the primary for some people (Loukaitou-Sideris, 2020).
However, there are signi cant barriers to pedestrian travel like the lack of access to sideways, lack of regulations on pedestrian safety, disintegration of sideways to the other public transport modes and disinterest in walking (Anciaes PR, 2016). Action Plan 6 presents urgent local actions to increase pedestrian travel in Sakarya city. Building sideways, integrating sideways with the other public transport modes and tra c calming are listed as the actions to improve the physical infrastructure. On the social infrastructure side, urgent actions to convey health and environmental messages to demonstrate that walking brings health bene ts for all people and environmental bene ts in all locations can help to raise social awareness.
Vehicle sharing is an emerging transportation system reducing fossil fuel uses, increasing safety and reducing operating costs (Jones EC, et al. 2019, OECD/ITF 2017). In Sakarya city, only bicycle sharing system, SAKBIS, has been effectively operated. Action Plan 7 targets to increase vehicle station facilities, vehicle eet size and customer demand sin the city in parallel with Action Plan 4 and Action Plan 5.
Investigating management models to meet current and future mobility needs, cooperation with private enterprises to build exible services and public incentivisation are determined the key actions to increase low and/or zero carbon vehicle sharing systems. However, achieving the targets of Action Plan 7 is depended on the progress of Action Plan 4 and Action Plan 5. It is expected to save almost 43,899 tCO2eq transportation-based emissions, if Action Plans 4-7 are successfully and urgently put into practice. From the gure, it can be concluded that transportation action plans proposed within SWOT analysis in Table 1 promises to decrease sector-based emissions by 27% compared to 2017 and by 26% compared to 2030 business as usual (BAU) Scenario.

Buildings
Sakarya Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory 2019 indicated that the largest contribution comes from building sector, 57.5% of total emissions of the city. The largest share of emissions by the sector came from industrial buildings to a record 27%. Residential buildings and commercial buildings were responsible for 19.9% and 9.6% of total emissions by the sector. Building outdoor lighting systems and municipal buildings followed industry, residential buildings and commercial buildings with smallest shares of 0.7% and 0.3% respectively (Figure 3) This paper proposes urgent local buildings and industry action plans for Sakarya city in Table 3 on the basis SWOT analysis results in Table 1. In Sakarya city, the largest share of residential buildings-based emissions came from fossil fuel use for heating-65% of building based emissions and 20% of total emissions. Heating based energy demands of the city is larger than cooling energy demands due to climate conditions of the city. Therefore, thermal insulation can make a signi cant difference in the city's emissions by heating and cooling. Action Plan 1 proposes that thermal insulation for all buildings can reduce heating and cooling based energy demands and emissions of the city almost 533,186 MWh and 121,112 tCO2eq at least by 2030. Natural gas is the primary heating energy source of residential buildings in the city. An urgent action by Action Plan 1 is to complete natural gas transformation in all residential buildings in the city. It is estimated that 14.876 tCO2eq of building based emissions cane be saved by coal to natural gas transformation. The other urgent action of the plan is to renovate lighting systems of residential buildings. Energy e cient new lighting systems can provide 18,005 MWh energy savings and 9,254 tCO2eq emission savings by 2030.
However, Action Plan 1 underlines that social awareness is the key to succeed expected savings within the actions by the plan. It is likely to make additional 77,163 MWh energy savings and 39,662 tCO2eq emission savings by 2030 with social responsibility as well as heating, cooling and lighting savings. Therefore, activities to raise the awareness of local people are also listed within urgent actions to reduce carbon foot print by residential buildings.
Non-residential buildings, commercial buildings and industrial buildings, were responsible for 35% of the city's total building-based emissions. Action Plan 2 offers thermal insulation, renovation of lighting systems and social awareness activities to reduce total emissions by commercial buildings. Although cooling has a larger share in energy demands of non-residential buildings, thermal insulation can still provide 142,911 MWh energy savings and 30,689 tCO2eq emission savings. However, energy e cient lighting systems can make a signi cant change in total emissions of commercial buildings and industrial buildings by 161,671 tCO2eq savings. Previous studies held in Sakarya city proves that more than 40% lighting energy saving is possible just using a daylight-controlled lighting automation system in such The share of outdoor lighting of municipal and public buildings in total emissions of the city was recorded 31,184 tCO2eq in 2017. Action Plan 5 targets to renovate outdoor lighting systems of all public buildings, since the government encourages corporations to make at least 15% outdoor lighting energy savings in parallel with the growth rate of electricity price of the country. An energy e cient outdoor lighting transformation with 15% energy savings can provide 11,500 tCO2eq emission savings to Sakarya city. Figure 4 indicates greenhouse gas emissions by building sector of reference year 2017 and 2030. From the gure, it can be concluded that buildings sector action plans proposed within SWOT analysis in Table  1 promises to decrease building-sector based emissions by 20% compared to 2017 and by 33% compared to 2030 BAU Scenario.

Renewable energy
In 2019, total annual electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by electricity generation of Sakarya city were recorded 3,144,306 MWh and 1,869,116 tCO2eq. The share of total annual electricity generation-based emissions in total city emissions was 40% ( Figure 5). Industrial sector makes the largest contribution with a 58% share and followed by commercial, residential and agricultural sectors.
In Sakarya city, solar and bioenergy technologies are promising to transform energy system of the city into a more sustainable one mainly by renewable energy sources. The annual mean solar radiation of the city is about 1450 kWh/m2, lower than Turkey's annual mean record but still a great potential comparing to Germany mean value ( Figure 6 This paper proposes urgent renewable energy action plans for Sakarya city in Table 4 on the basis of SWOT analysis results in Table 1. Residential and non-residential buildings are responsible for 41% of total electricity consumption and 40.9% of total energy-based emissions of Sakarya city. Action Plan 2 offers a rapid solar PV energy transition for these buildings by utilizing current legislation allowing unlicensed applications up to 5 MW installed power. As in Action 1, doing a full feasibility study, resource investigation and developing tendering schemes are urgent actions for success. However, the city is in the process of urban transformation within relevant legislation relating disaster risk areas. This process to build new residential areas and to transform the risky building stock can be considered as an opportunity for energy transition. In this context, local governments subsidize PV applications at certain capacities in residential and non-residential buildings to speed up the transition. It is aimed to increase the installed solar PV capacity of residential and non-residential buildings by 175 MWp by 2030. The new capacity promises 240,000 MWh electricity generation and 107,940 tCO2eq emission savings annually.
Republic of Turkey Energy Market Regulatory Board approved a green tariff of 0.698 TL/kW which allows end users to source up their electricity from renewable resources. Action Plan 3 targets to increase renewable energy demand on the end customer side by increasing the number of green tariffs. The priority of the action plan is to extend greenest tariffs from energy suppliers that buy electricity certi cate directly from renewable energy generators. Greenest tariffs tend to be more expensive due to the cost and e ciency of renewable energy generation systems. However, the demand for these tariffs are likely to increase in parallel with social awareness actions within local and national sustainable development plans to convince the end users that this price is worth paying. Besides, it is vital to increase the number of mixed tariffs from suppliers that provide end users mixed electricity from mix of renewable resources and fossil fuels. Although mixed tariffs do not promise to stimulate the development of renewables, they can speed the transition to a hundred percent renewable tariffs in Sakarya city where the number of green end users are very few. It is likely to save 514 tCO2eq emissions annually by a 1000 kWh of electricity consumption of an end user from a greenest tariff.
Reports indicate that the share of street lighting in total energy demand of SMM is 15.8% which accounts for 31.184 tCO2eq/year. Action Plan 4 targets to reduce the street lighting demands by renovating the street lighting systems. The prior action must be to analyse lighting energy demands and to do a feasibility analysis of lighting systems regionally. In the next step, lighting systems must be renovated as per the order of priority given by feasibility reports. It is likely to provide 18.309 kWh energy savings and 9.41 tCO2eq emission savings annually by renovation of at least half of street lighting systems in the city.
SMM generates electricity from municipal solid waste with an installed capacity of 3.87 MW at Sakarya Integrated Solid Waste Management Centre (SEKAY). Action Plan 5 offers that increasing the installed capacity of generation from municipal solid waste can be a rapid solution in short term to decrease the carbon foot print of the city in the process of renewable energy transition in all sectors. can be concluded that all action plans proposed within SWOT analysis in Table 1 promises to decrease total emissions by 24% compared to 2017 and by 28% compared to 2030 BAU Scenario.

Conclusion
In Sakarya city, the largest contribution to energy-based emissions comes from building sector, 57.5% of total emissions of the city. Transportation sector follows the building sector with a signi cant share, 27.5%. This paper presents local action plans to reduce the emissions by building and transport sectors and to support energy transformation set out in National Energy E ciency Action Plan. Action plans were developed by a SWOT analysis with information gathering the main points of Covenant of Mayors, climate change target of National Energy Action Plan and an online workshop with local stakeholders.
The calculations derived from proposed action plans indicate that preventive measures by local government can reduce emission per capita dramatically.
The results of SWOT analysis in this paper emphasize that local policies have the key role to build resilient cities against the climate change combat with economies of scale, environmental sustainability and educated society. The rst step for local adaptation and mitigation in climate policy is to develop complete and accurate greenhouse gas inventories. In this context it is meaningful to real-time monitor and analyse emissions with current technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) which offer a promising method to real-time monitoring. The next step is to formulate climate change targets and actions considering the cross-link between local adaptation and mitigation. Final steps are monitoring, reporting and developing adaptive local legislations accordingly (Fig. 8). In order to successfully implement climate change mitigation policies and activities, it is important to develop clearly stated assessment and reporting requirements and to develop monitoring methods that will provide performance evaluations. On a local scale, efforts to measure the progress in the practices and the cooperation between local government, private sector and local educational institutions will determine the contribution of local stakeholders and the success rate of sustainable development goals.

Declarations
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Availability of data and materials
The data that support the ndings of this study are available from Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality.  Figure 1 Growth rates of greenhouse gas emissions by transport units.  Global solar irradiation of Turkey [30] Note: The designations employed and the presentation of the material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Research Square concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. This map has been provided by the authors. The proposed local climate change policy cycle