Source: Karsten Berlin
Thanks to its position, Istanbul is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, its real estate values are rocketing through the sky. It is the one place to be in Europe (and Asia). The somewhat questionable ideas of prime minister Erdoğan will make it even bigger. His plans encompass a 3rd bridge, a second Bosphorus, two major million people cities on the outskirts of Istanbul and so on. This all will, according to his goals, lead to a major city of 25 million people.
Naturally, some things are left out of this formula. The city is already close to collapse and it is hard to imagine where 10 million more people will fit it. It is already difficult to breathe sometimes and killing the last nature reserves for the 3rd bridge will definitely not be helpful.
Istanbul Air Quality
In 2007, an european union funded LIFE project was started to determine some facts about Istanbul's pollution - by the way, the first time ever that such a research had been done in a turkish city. Data was sampled and fed into GIS (Geographic Information Systems) models, a strategy was derived as a research result (available foc here). As Turkey is ongoingly trying to make its way into the European Union, this is one of the major issues to solve as in these countries there are strict laws concerning pollution.
Air pollution reached an alarming level in the 80ies, mainly due to residential heating, motor vehicles, and industrial plants. Strangely, knowing that badly insulated houses are responsible for significant pollution did not change the housing schemes. Likewise, knowing that vehicles - every day, around 600 new cars are registered adding to the estimated 3.000.000 already on the streets! - are a major cause for pollution does not lead to improvements. I have not seen any electric or hybrid cars yet, the gas is often low-quality, the driving techniques are pure evil. Speed limits are a joke to most drivers and the traffic police does nothing to enforce them.
Infuriating about this is that by making sure that the cars conform to a certain standard - the german TÜV was asked to enforce this quality but it gave in after stating that 80 % of the cars would need to be taken out immediately if you follow German rules - the air quality could already be improved significantly.
Let’s save Istanbul 1.000.000 tons of CO2 in a year
That sounds like a crazy number and yes, it is. But what is even crazier, it is actually easy to do it.
1. Cars
Source: Karsten Berlin
Knowing the “sporty driving style” most Istanbullus have, it is probably safe to assume that the average gas consumption for small to medium cars is not below 10 liters / 100km. Then there is the fact that many people understand their cars as status objects so they just have to have bigger cars, preferably - of course - SUVs, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and so on. These cars are not famous for their environmentally friendly gas consumption. So we can easily add another 2 liters to our calculation and we would still be very positive.
Now let's assume that at least a third of these cars are used every day and that the average km stretch is around 25km then we arrive at
1.000.000 cars AND 25km/d AND 12l/100km → 3.000.000 liters gas per day
Impressive number, isn't it? And calculated with very low numbers. If anyone can help me get real numbers that would be highly appreciated.
But let’s continue. One liter gas burns to 2.34 kg CO2, 1 liter Diesel to even 2.64kg CO2. If we assume that there are more than 50 % non-diesel cars that would means
3.000.000 liters / day * 2.45 kg CO2 → 7.350.000 kg CO2 per day!!
Let me repeat that this is per day!
A very impressive number and it still leaves out thousands of mini-busses, busses and trucks, which use a lot more gas and thus produce a lot more CO2 than cars.
Trees are one way to deal with this immense input of CO2, but hey …?, what about the plans to cut down the forests to allow even more cars?! Sounds crazy and suicidal, but is true.
There are tips to reduce gas consumption by up to 30 % that can be found on many websites and brochures:
- Prefer small to big cars
- Prefer new to very old cars
- Have the engine checked regularly
- Check the tires regularly
- Accelerate smoothly and quickly, then drive in the highest possible gear at a steady pace
- Avoid constant braking and accelerating
- Don’t accelerate towards red lights
- Anticipatory driving
- …
Applying these 30 %, these techniques alone could save Istanbul around 2.500.000 kg CO2 per day! Or 912.500.000 kg CO2 = 912.500 tons in one year!!
2. Radiant heaters
In Istanbul most restaurants and cafés use radiant heaters, although radiant heaters cause as much CO2 as a small car! In a time where everyone knows about the effects of climate change, is it really necessary to sit outside at 3°C?! And if it is, why not use blankets?
An investigation into the matter showed that a radiant heater that runs 15 hours per week from September to May causes 2.000kg CO2
Assuming there are at least 3.000 heaters in Istanbul running like this, it would add up to another 6.000.000 kg CO2 = 6.000 tons every year that could be avoided.
3. House insulation
This is a very important topic as most of the older houses in Istanbul suffer from bad insulation. The people living in the apartments could save a lot of money every year (in winter heating, in summer cooling) but it would have to be the landlords to do it and the greediness is a lot bigger than the heartiness.
It is too difficult to estimate the amount of CO2 that is blown out the windows every year. But with 17.000.000 people it is safe to assume that much more can be saved than is needed to add up to our million.
Summing up
Researching about pollution in Istanbul was frustrating. Istanbul is an incredible city, it offers so many things but the authorities are closing their eyes against adopting urgently needed measures to sustain the city. City planners and influential people want to invest in more growth, cut down the last forests, have more people move to Istanbul, thus supporting the lifecycle of the city comes second. The main argument is of course always money but this is frustratingly shortsighted.
Measures would pay off quickly, especially considering the fact that Turkey has the highest gas prices in Europe, i.e. 30 % more than in Germany. It would save the city many thousands of Euros every day if they change to low-energy busses.
But we can all do our share.
Use public transport instead of your own car.
Use bicycles for shorter distances.
Avoid apartments with combined heating.
Don’t heat and have the window open at the same time.
Favor environmentally friendly cafés with blankets.
Create an awareness for these matters among your friends.
Sources (among others these are most valuable):
