20201124 - Armagan's Postdoc Blog

My working tempo compared to Istanbul has not changed much. I guess I just don't mind when I can't keep up with my schedule. Because I can arrange my time myself.

So what am I doing for work? Today I would like to talk a little bit about my academic work.

The purpose of my project is to measure the impact of innovations made in the renewable energy sector in Germany on sustainability! This may seem a little confusing and incomprehensible. Even if it is understood, it is difficult to predict how to do it.

While I was trying to find the subject of my PhD thesis in Turkey, I had decided to develop a method taking advantage of what I learned and what I read earlier. After discovering the similarity of my method to methods of ecological economics, I explored the relation of ecological economics to the development problem that has always interested me. Thus, the title of my thesis was named the Development Problem in Ecological Economics. In my thesis, I had paid attention to examine, compare and criticize the views of ecological economists around the world in terms of the development problem. Thus, the intersection points of ecological economics and development economics would emerge. Meanwhile, I was going to explain how development economics schools abstractly approached their solution proposals for environmental problems.

Although the thesis was not perfect, it succeeded that at a certain level. While doing these researches, a method that I can use automatically started to be developed. In fact, this method was well suited to the general point of view of ecological economics. So, what is this method?

In ecological economics, it is not thought that there are clear boundaries between the phenomena and it is generally preferred to make a holistic examination. Each being is in connection with another being and forms a whole. In fact, this whole is a different entity than the sum of the individual parts. Beings evolve according to these complex environments. So, while examining a phenomenon, it is necessary to analyse its relationship with other phenomena. While examining the issue of development, my method also takes into account that, development has not only economic but also legal, historical, sociological and technical aspects.

When applying this type of method, there is usually not a single focus on the subject you are examining. It is hardly necessary to focus on a single problem and try to solve it. This type of research is usually descriptive.

In both the theoretical part of my thesis and the energy sector part I examined, there was a subject that challenged the explanation power of my method: Can technological advances reduce environmental pollution? It is known that, theoretically and experimentally, technological developments increase environmental destruction. However, this issue is discussed so much in the literature that it divides even ecological economists into two main camps as green growth supporters and degrowth supporters.

At this point, I decided to examine this issue in Germany, which has made huge investments and incentives in renewable energy. If the environmental impact of innovation policies in Germany is below a certain level, there will be no need to write down the environmental benefits of technology in pages.

I know the question of what a certain level is is confusing. Therefore, I decided to do my work by preparing a simulation model where I can see the different results of different policy options by system dynamics. What is the maximum environmental pollution reduction we can achieve if we fully implement innovation policies that work?

Of course, I will consider the most urgent carbon dioxide reduction as environmental pollution reduction. This will be one of the limitations of the model. But while the focus of innovations is on carbon emission reduction, if even carbon emission reduction is not sufficient, policies need to be questioned.