Turkey Has Not Yet Made a Commitment to Reduce Greenhouse Gases By a Certain Percentage By 2030

This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Turkey Country Manager Nemanja Bozovic

Current level of greenhouse gas emissions

In 2019, the Republic of Turkey emitted 506.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, which represented an increase of 130.5% over 1990 levels according to the Turkish government statistical agency TURKSTAT (Figure 1). However, there was a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in 2019 of 4.8% in comparison to 2018.

Figure 1

Turkey has not yet made a commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by a certain percentage by 2030. However, President Erdogan stated that 1.92 billion cubic meters of greenhouse gases will be prevented from being released into the environment by 2030. His statement was on energy efficiency and said Turkey is 66.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission reduction by 2023.

2030 Implementation Plan

Turkey does not have a comprehensive 10-year GHG emissions reduction plan. However, in February 2021, the government of Turkey announced new measures to cope with climate change challenges consisted within action plans for all seven regions of Turkey. This strategy was announced by the Minister of Environment and Urban Development Murat Kurum. Details or any official documents about these action plans are still not available; yet Mr. Kurum stated these components of the plan:

  • New energy-efficient, climate-sensitive residential areas will be founded across the country
  • For houses constructed by the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKI) will be mandatory to have zero-waste practices and use renewable energy resources
  • Recycling rate is set to be increased to 60% by 2035
  • Until 2023 Turkey will increase the rate of recycled wastewater to 5%, and to 15% by 2030
  • Energy capacity would be increased to 10 gigawatts for solar energy and 16 gigawatts for wind energy by 2030
  • New system will be established that supports climate-friendly investments and rewards facilities investing in clean production technologies
  • By the year of 2023 usage of fossil fuels in buildings will be reduced by 25%

2050 Emission Reduction Commitment Level

No commitment to a 2050 reduction of GHG emission levels has been made by the Turkish Government.

Turkey and the Paris Agreement

Although the Republic of Turkey is one of the signatories of the Paris Agreement, the Agreement has not been ratified by parliament. Turkey’s permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Kerem Alkin, marked key dispute over the ratification of Paris Agreement, categorizes Turkey as a developed economy and not as developing country as Turkey should be seen. He stated that this condition is putting Turkey into a financially challenging situation and that its government is not able to provide additional funding to enhance its institutional capacity to meet the obligations.

Contact

Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of the Republic)

Republic of Turkey, President of the Republic of Turkey

E-mail: contact@tccb.gov.tr

Mr. Fatih Dönmez (Minister)

Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources

E-mail: ozelkalem@enerji.gov.tr

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Emin Birpınar (Deputy Minister, chief negotiator to represent Turkey during the international climate change negotiations held within the scope of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)

Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization

E-mail: mehmet.birpinar@csb.gov.tr / by.okm@csb.gov.tr

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