The contours of Turkey's climate policy have remained almost intact over the past two decades. Being an Annex I party without any mitigation commitments, Turkey maintains a peculiar position under UNFCCC. Subsequent to 12 years of delay in signing both the Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, Turkey had the highest rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions among the Annex I countries with 110.4% upsurge in the period 1990 and 2013. Yet with the new climate regime now in place, the country's mitigation pledges fall short of expectations both in terms of realistic projections and its ambition to step up in the post‐2020 period. Climate policies in Turkey, an EU candidate and OECD founding member with a growing economy, remain under‐investigated. Although the country has a wide range of policies and institutions in place, it shows limited progress in addressing climate change. Based on evidence from the literature, we observe that climate policies operationalize in Turkey insofar as they do not directly confront developmental ambitions, leaving policy diffusion with limited success. To provide a historic overview, we focus on climate policy development, actors, processes, and contemporary trends. Evidence shows that these are highly ridden with the politics of special circumstances: a notion that Turkey employs to refrain from bindings commitments. In order to go beyond special circumstances discourse, we argue the need for a bold policy shift in Turkey, a country subject to adverse impacts of climate change and high‐carbon lock‐in risk due to development policy preferences. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:448–460. doi: 10.1002/wcc.390 This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy
The green economy is often defined as an economic configuration that results in improved human wellbeing and social equity, while reducing (or at least decoupling from) environmental risks. It is elusive, and can be read as a new way of ensuring and maintaining capital accumulation accompanied by neoliberal austerity policies, where a green rationale is required to maintain the structural roots of the global political economy. As such, critics often identify its self-contradictory nature, in giving legitimacy and coherence to a number of public policies. This article critically examines the post-politicisation of the green economy, by tracing its social construction and meaning-making. In doing so, it follows the green economy debate in the post-politicization of the environment in Turkey, a rapidly developing country with significant socio-ecological challenges. The analysis suggests that the green economy will become more important at Turkey tries to meet international environmental agreements. The article sheds light on its preparatory report for the Rio+20 Summit, titled Turkey's sustainable development report: claiming the future 2012. We find that the green economy serves as a useful discursive tool to legitimize a statefacilitated, market-driven, full-frontal assault on ecosystems in Turkey, particularly in the energy sector. We argue that a clear rejection of such framings and the development of alternatives to postpoliticization, are the two key challenges facing the environmental movement in the country. Key Words: green economy, Turkey Résumé L'économie verte est souvent définie comme une configuration économique qui améliore le bien-être humain et l'équité sociale, tout en réduisant (ou du moins découplant) les risques environnementaux. Elle est insaisissable et peut être lue comme une nouvelle façon d'assurer et de maintenir l'accumulation de capital, accompagnée de politiques d'austérité néolibérales, où si une justification verte est nécessaire pour maintenir les racines structurelles de l'économie politique mondiale. En tant que tels, les critiques identifient souvent sa nature contradictoire, en donnant la légitimité et la cohérence à un certain nombre de politiques publiques. Cet article examine de manière critique la post-politisation de l'économie verte, en retraçant sa construction sociale et sa signification. Ce faisant, elle fait suite au débat sur l'économie verte dans la post-politisation de l'environnement en Turquie, un pays en développement rapide avec des défis socio-écologiques importants. Nous pensons que l'économie verte deviendra plus importante à mesure que la Turquie tentera de respecter les accords internationaux sur l'environnement. L'article fait la lumière sur son rapport préparatoire pour le Sommet Rio + 20, intitulé Rapport sur le développement durable de la Turquie: prétendre à l'avenir 2012. Nous constatons que l'économie verte sert d'instrument discursif utile pour légitimer un assaut frontal sur les écosystèmes en Turquie, en particulier dans le secteur de l'é...
Despite concerns on their effectiveness and legitimacy, carbon markets are often presented as the main tool of climate policy. Developing countries are particularly eager to establish and interlink their carbon markets to benefit from global climate investment flows. Turkey is a belated but willing player in this endeavor. In tracing the ambivalent politics of establishing a carbon market in Turkey, we focus on the perceptions of different actors vis-à-vis carbon marketization attempts. Using policy documents, 22 expert interviews, and process tracing, we question the underlying assumptions on carbon markets in a country with unambitious climate targets. Our findings suggest that the making of carbon market in Turkey is not necessarily a rational, national interest-driven process but instead one promoted by the international organizations including World Bank and the EU. We conclude that this preference for market-based instruments defer public interest, favor more incremental policies, and ignore distributive justice concerns.
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