Environmental impacts of renewable energy in terms of fossil fuel consumption

Renewable energy technologies are considered as clean resources and the optimal use of these resources minimizes the effects of environmental destruction. Finding solutions to the environmental problems we face today requires potential long-term actions for sustainable development. In this context, renewable energy sources emerge as one of the most efficient and effective solutions. The European Union has set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990. To implement this roadmap, our world needs to develop its resource utilization capacity with renewable energy. The expected scenarios related to renewable energy are discussed extensively in this study. The aim of this study is to present a new perspective in parallel with the findings by discussing the effects of renewable energy consumption and fossil fuel consumption on the environment, after presenting a general perspective on energy. While carrying out this study, besides renewable energy; The problem of energy supply, supply and demand management, energy security and other energy-based issues such as efficiency studies are also included. In addition, current environmental problems and possible solutions to these problems are also included with renewable energy technologies. In the application part of the study, the total fossil fuel consumption, renewable energy consumption, CO2 emissions and GDP data in 23 European Union Countries and Turkey for the years 1992-2014 were analyzed using the Stata 14.2 package program. As a result of the findings obtained with the fixed effects model, it was revealed that there is a negative relationship between renewable energy and fossil fuel consumption. This negative relationship shows us that fossil fuel consumption may decrease with the increase of renewable energy. In the study, the coefficients of this relation are expressed as follows; A 1% increase in renewable energy reduces fossil fuel consumption by 0.05%.