The Impact of the Covenant of Mayors on Climate Policies: The Case of Eskişehir Tepebaşı Municipality

Abstract

Since the 1970s, the damage to the environment has undoubtedly increased due to the rapid development of the industry and the increasing population. The increasing amount of pollution has created irreparable effects on living things and natural resources, climate change has brought problems such as non-recyclable energy consumption, water scarcity, increasing waste consumption and the risk of depletion of natural resources. In this process, due to their structures and characteristics, cities and local governments have begun to emerge as actors that can be more effective in preparing policies on climate change and take action more quickly. At this point, networks were needed to guide cities for climate change policies, action plans, adaptation and mitigation. In this context, the (Covenant of Mayors - CoM), which contributes to the fight against global climate change by strengthening the cooperation of cities, such as sharing knowledge, experience, projects, financial support and exemplary implementation, is cited as an example to these networks. It is known that CoM, which provides opportunities to develop local scale solutions to the problem of climate change, guides the climate policies of local governments and accelerates the global studies. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the effects of the Covenant of Mayors on the climate policies of Eskişehir Tepebaşı Municipality. In this context, the studies of Tepebaşı Municipality on climate change after becoming a party to CoM will be analyzed descriptively.