Modeling the impact of climate change on local governments in Turkey with spatial data analysis

Climate change and global warming have been at the forefront of the world's agenda in recent years. The change that could not be noticed before has turned into a global phenomenon and has become visible. The global increase in surface temperatures has started to affect the socioeconomic life of people directly and indirectly, deteriorating the balance of the ecosystem, rising sea level, shrinking the areas of snow and ice cover by melting, and the rapid increase of epidemic diseases. Regardless of the level of development, this transformation process has brought serious economic costs on economies. This phenomenon, which puts pressure on the world economy in different dimensions, has led economies to create new environmental policies from an international perspective to a national one and even from local to regional in recent years. Although the efforts to solve environmental problems are generally carried out within the scope of the central government, local governments have environmental expenditures to carry out preventive activities in this regard. In fact, green local government movements, which are born and shaped as a reaction, generally act from the belief of a better life. In the prevention of environmental pollution, it is necessary to undertake some duties in local governments besides the central government. The main objective of Turkey's environmental policy has been determined as the protection and development of the environment along with sustainable development. The main principle of this policy is to ensure a sustainable development on the condition of managing natural resources, protecting human health and natural balance, and passing down a livable natural, physical and social environment to future generations. In this context, in this study, it is aimed to make a spatial analysis on the effect of environmental expenditures made by local governments and their work on hazardous substance disposal on air quality. The study was based on the 2009, 2014 and 2019 local election periods and the spatial distribution of the variables was aimed to be revealed with the help of LISA statistics. The study is based on 81 provinces. In addition, in the study, the effect of the variables on the air quality for 2019 with spatial data analysis was determined according to the appropriate model, so the effects of the expenditures and activities on the air quality were evaluated and the results were desired to be revealed.