Bioenergy Focused Smart Specialisation Potential in İzmir Within the Scope of Tackling Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change is seen as one of the foremost risks to the sustainable future of the world and humanity, and its negative effects are increasing day by day. Energy production and usage are the biggest cause of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is one of the main factors of climate change. Therefore, energy is one of the primary areas that should be focused on in tackling climate change. This negative effect of energy on climate change results in an increase in efforts and investments toward clean energy conversion all over the world. Countries and cities that want to accelerate their development by growing in competitive and high-value-added sectors see this situation as an important economic opportunity at the same time. As one of the main clean energy sources, bioenergy is one of the important sectors in the world's clean energy transformation. Regions and cities in Europe carry out smart specialisation studies to use their bioenergy potential and try to accelerate their regional development. In this study, the potential for bioenergy focused smart specialisation in İzmir was evaluated according to the Good Smart Specialisation Practice Criteria developed by the Energy Thematic Working Group of the European Union (EU) Smart Specialisation Platform (S3 Platform) called S3PEnergy. The evaluation was made qualitatively using the gap analysis method in light of the data gathered from the literature search. As a result of this interdisciplinary study in the fields of regional development and clean energy, suggestions for a bioenergy focused smart specialisation implementation in İzmir were presented.