Beyond special circumstances: climate change policy in Turkey 1992–2015

Abstract

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

Identifying Ecological Distribution Conflicts Around the Inter-regional Flow of Energy in Turkey: A Mapping Exercise

“…The appetite for the economic and social development has also influenced the international climate policy of Turkey. As Turhan et al (2016) put forward, Turkey is a laggard country in the global effort of mitigating climate change and resorts to a rather defensive stance due to the clash between environmental protection and economic development, which caused a significant delay on the way of it becoming a party to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).…”

“…Turkey's foot dragging and reservations about the international climate policy are the result of its objective of catching up with the West (and hence being in the same league with the western countries, as exemplified by Turkey's membership in OECD), resulting in a prioritisation of economic growth (Turhan et al, 2016). On its path to development, concerns about environment and climate change were seen as obstacles and were mostly neglected when they clashed with economic priorities (Turhan et al, 2016). As Erdi Lelandais (2015) states, Turkey's so-called commitment to environmental and climate policy was there only as a matter of raising the country's prestige at the international arena.…”

“…In the case of Turkey, the ambition for national economic growth forms the basis of its aggressive energy policy that relies on several electricity generation projects that create environmental and social problems at local scale. Yet, the national ambition for the development of domestic coal fired power plants aggravates the problem of climate change at global level, and negatively affects the country's participation in the international climate policy (Turhan et al, 2016).…”

Achieving Turkey’s INDC Target: Assessments of NCCAP and INDC Documents and Proposing Conceivable Policies

“…Furthermore, the documents published after the NCCAP and given as references in the INDC document do not include any information about implementation of the NCCAP goals; 10th National Development Plan, National Strategy on Industry, Energy Efficiency Strategy Paper, National Strategy and Action Plan on Recycling, National Legislation on Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of GHG emissions, National Smart Transportation Systems Strategy (2014-2023) and its Action Plan (2014-2016). Turhan et al [70] also criticized Turkey as maintaining a peculiar position under UNFCCC for two decades, and with the new climate regime now in place, they claimed that the country's mitigation pledges were falling short of expectations both in terms of realistic projections and its ambition to step up in the post-2020 period.…”

The post-politics of the green economy in Turkey: re-claiming the future?

“…Future success in sustainable development is linked to policy and legislation, although deficiencies in implementation and lack of compliance control are recognized. Among the opportunities for green 22 A latecomer to climate policy, Turkey is still in the process of setting up its carbon market which it wants eventually to integrate with global carbon markets (see Turhan et al 2016). As of today, only voluntary carbon transactions are possible in Turkey.…”