The Carbon Brief Profile: Turkey

In the second article of anew serieson how key emitters are responding to climate change, Carbon Brief looks at Turkey’s rising emissions and its efforts to curb them…

Turkey is amajor economywhich straddles Europe and Asia. It is the world’s 20th largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs). However, within the UN climate negotiations, it has an unusual position: it is a middle income country with low historic emissions, but it is also among the club of generally developed countries which form the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

The Turkish economy and the nation’s demand for energy have been growing rapidly, trends that are set to continue. With its expanding energy needs mostly being met by fossil fuels – in particular, coal for generating electricity – Turkey’s emissions are set to rise significantly. However, it has promised some efforts to constrain its emissions growth.

Graphic by Tom Prater for Carbon Brief.

Politics

Turkey became一个共和国in 1923, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. It elected secularist Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as its first president.

Since then, it has become integrated in major international treaties, joining NATO in 1952 and being a founding member of theOECDin 1961.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, founder of the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) and former mayor of Istanbul,becameprime minister in 2003. In 2014, hewonTurkey’s first direct presidential election.

In the wake of anattempted coupin 2016, areferendumin April 2017 narrowlybackedswitching from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential system, significantly increasing Erdoğan’s powers. The changes will come into place after Turkey’s next general election, previously scheduled for November 2019, butlast monthit was brought forward to 24 June 2018. [Update 25/6/18: Erdoğan was yesterday declared the victor in Turkey’s presidential election.]

The government’sstrong responseto the 2016 coup attempt led to a serious rift in Turkey’s relations with its western allies,including the EU, which hasaccusedErdoğan of using the coup attempt as a pretext to crack down on the opposition. Turkey haslong harboured an ambitionto join the EU, with membership talkslaunched in 2005．However, discussions havefrequently被set back, often due to concerns over Turkey’s human rights record.

Turkey has alsolong被criticisedfor its lack of action on climate change. This is another barrier to EU entry as it must align its policies with the bloc to satisfy EUmembership conditions．A recentcommunicationfrom the European Commission noted that Turkey has not yet adopted a national strategy consistent with the EU’s2030 climate and energy framework．It said:

“[Turkey’s] national climate change strategy and action plan are inconsistent with other strategies, such as those for energy. A climate change adaptation strategy is yet to be adopted and enforced. Work to build climate action know-how in different government agencies and mainstreaming of climate change into different sector policies is still weak.”

Turkey’s economy has tripled in size over the past two decades, despite a setback due to aneconomic crisisin 2001. But unemployment in Turkey sits ataround 10%, well above the OECD average of 5.5%.

The government hopes to continue this economic expansion. Erdoğan’s politicalvision for 2023, the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic, includes a target of becoming one of the world’s 10 largest economies, up from 17thtoday．The vision does not mention climate change.

While previous Turkish administrations have also been lacklustre on climate ambition, the AKP’s focus over the past 15 years on energy expansion has meant Turkey has further accelerated its emissions. Erdoğanplansto continue increasing Turkey’s energy supply to support its growing economy. He also sees energy as an important component of its foreign policy.

The push by Turkey’s energy ministry to exploit domestic coal resources, as well as theclose relationshipbetween coal mine owners and the AKP, isat odds withany claims to be increasing action on climate change. Meanwhile, a governmental decreeissued在2016年提供豁免许可证和烫发issions for fossil-fuel projects which have been defined as “strategic investments”. Thiscouldreportedly allow fast-tracking, or even elimination of environmental assessments in some cases.

For years, Turkey has had an unusual status at the UN climate talks (see below). Within the negotiations, it has focussed largely on securing access to international climate finance.

Pollsshowclimate change is not a particularly big concern of those living in Turkey. However, this has not stopped Turkey fromshowing interestin hostingCOP26, the UN climate conference scheduled for 2020. This will be a key year for the Paris Agreement’s ”ratchet mechanism” to push up climate ambition, as it is when the second round ofcountry pledgesare due.

Paris pledge

Turkey is one of only a few countries – and the largest emitter – which does not sit in any of the formalnegotiating blocsat the international climate talks overseen by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Turkish emissions have risen faster than for any otherAnnex I(see below) country,more than doublingbetween 1990 and 2013. Turkey was responsible for emissions of 415m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2015, according todatacompiled by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). This is less than the UK’s emissions the same year, but larger than France’s. It is equal to 0.83% of global GHG emissions that year.

This includes CO2 absorbed by land use, land use-change and forestry (LULUCF), which has been partially offsetting fossil fuel emissions in Turkey for decades.

This is due, in part, to anincrease in forest area, pushed bypoliciesto expand Turkey’s largelystate-ownedforests. In its 2016 biennialreportto the UNFCCC, Turkey said that the increasing trend of removals by LULUCF are driven by improvements in sustainable forest management, afforestations, forest-fire management and conversion of annual cropland to perennial cropland and grassland.

Note, however, that there are high uncertainties in LULUCF emissions data for Turkey due to accounting methods. The sudden change in LULUCF emissions from a source to a sink in 1991 in the infographic above is due to a switch of data sources for land-use CO2.

Turkey joined theKyoto Protocolin2009, four years after it entered into force. The protocolobliges developed countries, in particular, to reduce their emissions. However, Turkey remains the only party to it with no emissions reduction commitment. It hasnotpromised anyaction before 2020at the UNFCCC.

土耳其提交一个气候pledge(“nationally determined contribution”, orNDC) to the UNFCCC in 2015, in the lead up to theParis Agreementbeing made. It has sincesignedthe Paris deal, but hasyet to formally ratifyit, the only G20 country bar Russia not to have done so. Only22 countrieshave not yet ratified the Paris deal, out of the195UNFCCC parties.

Turkey expects its emissions to continue to rise steeply. Its NDC pledge to cut emissions by “up to 21%” by 2030, including LULUCF, compared to abusiness-as-usual(BAU) scenario.

According to the NDC, in a BAU scenario Turkey’s emissions would nearly triple in the coming decades, from 430MtCO2e in 2012 up to 1,175MtCO2e in 2030. Its Paris climate target, therefore, means bringing emissions in 2030 down to 929MtCO2e. This would still be well over double 2012 levels and in excess of current emissions from Germany.

Turkey does not outline any target year for peaking emissions or reducing emissions intensity, let alone reducing emissions in absolute terms. The target has beencriticisedfor possibly not leading to any reduction at all, since the assumed BAU level of 5% annual growth may be unrealistically high, with actual growth closer to 3.5%. According toone commentator, there is also a lack of transparency over the methodology of the BAU and how the reduction levels were determined.

Climate Action Tracker(猫)ratesTurkey’s Paris pledge as “critically insufficient”, meaning it is not at all consistent with the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to “well below” 2C, let alone 1.5C. CAT’s rating means that if all government targets were akin to Turkey’s, warming would breach 4C. CAT also notes that the 2030 target in the NDC is equivalent to a 348% emissions increase from 1990 levels.

Turkey’s NDC points out that its per capita GHG emission in 2012 – at 5.9 tonnes CO2e (tCO2e) per person – are “much lower than the EU and OECD average”. (Different emissions counting from thePotsdam databaseshows lower emissions of 5.4tCO2e per person in 2015.)

However, assuming that Turkey’s population increases by the 10 million or soprojectedby the UN by 2030 – and that it sticks to its Paris pledge – per capita emissions will almost double to 10.5tCO2e by 2030. This would be well abovetoday’sworld average of 6.8tCO2e per capita. At the same time, EU per capita emissions are set to decline to around 6.4tCO2e by 2030.

Special circumstances

Turkey haslong soughta special status at the UNFCCC, in light of its particular national circumstances.

Due to it being an OECD member in 1992, Turkey was listed among the “Annex I” and “Annex II” groups of countries at the UNFCCC. These countries, which are generally richer and more developed, aresupposedto take the lead on tackling climate change, in contrast to the ”Non-Annex I” group of developing countries whichhave fewer obligations．

Since it was also listed in “Annex II” Turkey was theoretically required to reduce its emissions and to assist “developing” countries which were in some cases richer than Turkey.

After years of discussions, adecisiontaken by the UNFCCC in 2001 removed Turkey from Annex II and invited parties to “recognise the special circumstances of Turkey”, which make it different from other Annex I countries. In particular, this meant Turkey wasnot obligedto give climate finance. This paved the way for Turkey to join the UNFCCC in 2004.

However, Turkey hascontinuedtopushfor further differentiation, arguing it has relatively low per capita emissions and low historical responsibility for climate change. (Note again, though, that Turkey’s per capita emissions will soon overtake theEU average．)

Climate finance

Turkey’s NDC also requestsinternational financial support, which it says is key to reducing its emissions.

It has also effectively made ratification of the Paris Agreement conditional on access to one source of finance, theGreen Climate Fund(GCF). Erdoğansaidlast year that the US’s move topull out the Paris Agreementmakes Turkey less inclined to ratify the deal, since it jeopardises compensation promised to developing countries.

However, Turkey is already receiving significant international climate finance from severalmultilateral development banksandbilateralchannels,as well asmoney for technology and capacity building from several finance institutions.

One recentreportfound that Turkey is the single largest recipient of EU climate finance, receiving €667m per year on average between 2013 and 2016,far aboveany of the more vulnerable least developed countries (LDCs).

Likewise,yabo亚博体育app下载by Carbon Brief published last year found Turkey was the fifth largest recipient of multilateral climate funds between 2013 and 2016, receiving $231m through channels such as theClean Technology Fund(CTF) and theGlobal Environment Facility(GEF). Turkey has beenassuredits current climate support will continue.

At the most recent annualclimate talks, which was held in Bonn in November 2017, the Turkish delegationrepeatedthat it would not ratify the Paris Agreement before a solution on access to the GCF was agreed. At the talks, discussions on Turkey’s access to the GCF again failed, reportedlydue tothe concerns of major negotiation blocs, including the G77/China, given that the GCF was intended to support developing countries.

Coal

Turkey’s electricity demand israpidly expandingand – as the infographic above shows – the power industry is the largest source of its GHG emissions.

The country’s energy policy has increasingly put a large emphasis on the presumed security of supplyprovidedby domestic coal, which it says is needed to support its economic expansion. It is currentlyheavily dependenton importedoilandgas, with domestic production verysmall．This hasledtoconcernsover its exposure to the volatility in oil and gas prices. Turkey isparticularly dependenton Russia for fossil fuel imports.

Turkey currently generates 74 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from coal, 28% of all its electricity and well over double the 34TWh generated from coal in 2004.Aroundhalf of this comes from imports. The sources of electricity expansion over the 30 years up to 2015 are shown in the chart below.

Sources of electricity production in Turkey, 1985-2015. Source: World BankWorld Development Indicatorsfor breakdown between different sources; BPStatistical Review of World Energy 2017for total electricity generation values. Chart by Carbon Brief usingHighcharts．

Turkey’s national energy policy hasmadedomestically sourced coal the preferred fuel for expanding its electricity capacity. Its lateststrategic plansets a goal to nearly double the use of domestic coal for power generation by 2019, compared to 2012 levels. The plan says:

“Coal, particularly in the recent period, by the impact of clean coal technologies, has reached a different position and become to be [a] more alluring phenomenon.”

According toCoalSwarm目前,土耳其around 18 gigawatts(GW) of operating coal plants, making it the 13th largest fleet in the world. It intends to greatly expand this, withplansfor total coal-power capacity to reach 30GW by 2023.

Turkey currently has a further 43GW of coal-fired plants in the planning or construction phases, according to CoalSwarm. This puts it fourth after only China,Indiaand Vietnam in its plans for coal expansion.

It is worth noting, however, that only 1GW of this is currently under construction and it is unlikely all the planned coal plants will get built, in part due toprotests．Water shortagescould alsoreduce the operating efficiency and reliability of coal power plants.

Most of Turkey’s large coal plants aresubsidised: a 2015reportfrom the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) estimated that coal subsidies totalled at least $730m in 2013.

Turkey is thought to have around 6,000m tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) of recoverable coal reserves, less than 1% of the world total. It hasintensifieditseffortsto find new coal fields and develop existing ones in recent years. Lignite is the most commonly used type of coal in Turkey’s plants. It plans toopenseveral new coal mines to extract domestic lignite reserves in the coming years.

It is also moving to position itself in the global energy system. After three years of construction, theTrans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP)to deliver gas from Azerbaijan through Georgia and Turkey to Europe, is set to be completed在2018年的夏天．This follows another gas pipeline between Turkey and Greece, whichopenedin 2007. The Turkish government expects the pipeline to strengthen its role as aregional energy hub．

Renewables

Turkey has beensingled outas having one of thelargest potentialsamong European countries for renewables expansion, particularly for wind and geothermal power. However, as shown in the electricity production chart above, only around 6% of its electricity was produced by renewables, excluding hydro, in 2015.

Turkey’sNDCoutlines an intention to increase its renewables capacity. This includes 2030 targets for solar capacity to reach 10GW and wind capacity to hit 16GW. (Thesestood at3.4GW and 6.5GW respectively in 2017. Turkeyadded2.6GW of solar in 2017 alone, a growth rate that would surpass its 2030 target within three years.)

However, Turkey’s 2014National Renewable Energy Action Planhad previously targeted a far larger 20GW of wind capacity by 2023. The NDC wind target has, therefore, been被称为a “clear and substantial reduction of ambition” on previous targets.

Turkey’s NDC states it wants to tap its “full hydroelectric potential”. Hydropower currently plays an important part in Turkey’s electricity generation, producing 26% of the country’s electricity in 2015. Although not stated in the NDC, the 2014 plan also set out a hydro capacity goal of 34GW by 2023, out of a total renewables capacity goal of 61GW. (This can be compared to itscurrentcapacity of 39GW.)

Critics of hydropower’s dominant role in Turkey’s renewables mixpoint toits potential downsides, such as land flooding, loss of agricultural land and环境不公．Drought caused by rising global temperatures is alsoexpectedto have a negative impact on hydroelectric generation.

Elsewhere, Turkey has said it plans to keep itsRenewable Energy Support Mechanism(YEKDEM) and has set out plans to explore the potential for additional geothermal fields suitable for electricity generation.

The IISDstudyfound Turkey could already generate electricity more cheaply using onshore wind and solar than with coal, whenexternalitiesare included.

Meanwhile, a 2014reportfromWWF-TurkeyandBloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)concluded that expanding Turkey’s wind, solar and hydropower could meet its energy needs for the same cost as its planned coal expansion, even without including the benefits from reducing emissions and air pollution. The report also found Turkey’s energy demand may be 25% lower in 2030 than the government expects, due to expected changes in the economy and energy efficiency.

The 2014 action plan also被称为for a 10% share of renewable energy in transport by 2023, up from less than 1% at present.

Nuclear

While Turkey currently has no operating nuclear plants, nuclear energy is another major focus of its energy policy. Its 2015 NDC highlighted plans to commission a nuclear power plant by 2030, whilemore recent planssaid two nuclear power plants would be operational by 2023, with a third under construction.

The first of these, the 4.8GWAkkuyu nuclear plantset to be built on the Mediterranean coast, was initiallyexpectedto be fully operationalby 2019．However, it has been beset by delays and may now evenmissits new 2023 target.

Rosatom, the Russian developer, wasgranteda construction licence to start work on the plant earlier this month, but isreportedlystruggling to find local partners to share costs. Earlier this month, constructionreportedlystarted on the first of four 1.2GW units.

Meanwhile,costs have been risingon the second project, the 4.5GWSinop nuclear power plantled by Japan and being built by the Black Sea. Thethird siteis supposed to be built in the northwestern Kırklareli province.

Climate laws

While Turkey institutionalised climate change in public policy fairly early, the ambition of its goalsremains low．

In 2005, it enacted theRenewable Energy Law, with a target to source 30% of its electricity from renewables, including hydro, by 2023. However, Turkey already achieved this target in 2015, as the electricity consumption chart above shows.

The lawset upa renewables feed-in tariff and requires energy retailers to buy a set amount of their total uptake from licensed renewable energy generators. It also requires grid operators to give access to renewable generators.

A later2007 actset a target to increase geothermal energy production and consumption 10-fold, while the 2013 electricitymarket lawintroduced new tax deductions for renewables up 2030.

In 2010, Turkey published itsClimate Change Strategyup to 2020. This outlines Turkey’s vision to address climate change and its ambition to “transition to low carbon economy”. It set out policies to reduce emissions from energy, industry, transportation, waste and land-use change. It repeated the 30% renewable electricity target for 2023 and aimed to cut GHG emissions from electricity 7% by 2030.

TheClimate Change Action Plan, published the next year in 2011, set out short-, mid- and long-term plans to tackle climate change. It set a target to increase the amount of sequestered carbon in agricultural forestry activities by 10% by 2020, compared to 2007.

Turkey’s 2018energy efficiency action planaims to cut primary energy consumptionby 24Mtoeby 2023. This cut is likely to be relative to BAU, though it does not say so explicitly. The strategy commits $11bn towards energy savings across several sectors, including buildings, transport, energy and agriculture. Turkey had also passed energy efficiency laws in2007and2012．

On the other hand, the government is also preparing a law to provide exemptions from environmental regulations for new coal-fired power plants. A similar initiative was previously rejected by the constitutional court, according to a 2016reportfrom the IASS. The report points out that a rhetoric focussed on fossil fuels among the political elite and the absence of long-term planning also reduce the attractiveness of the sustainable energy sector for investors.

以市场为基础的工具

Turkey considers market-based instruments to be a key part of its climate policy. Its NDC states that it “aims to use carbon credits from international market mechanisms to achieve its 2030 mitigation target”. However, some analysts havewarnedthat use of carbon markets could risk Turkey exporting some of its emissions to other developing countries.

Turkey has so far operated only in voluntary carbon markets, in which 1.9MtCO2e of offsets were transacted for a total $2m in 2017, the sixth largest of all countries. This is equivalent to less than half of 1% of Turkey’s annual emissions.

然而,土耳其采取了新的监管框架for a mandatory emissions reporting system in 2012. This is set to pave the way for a formal emissions trading system (ETS). Monitoring started in 2015 and Turkey last yearcompletedthe first year of mandatory emissions reporting. Turkey’s candidature to the EUalso meansit would need tocomplywith the rules of theEU ETS, with emissions reporting legislation animportant steptowards this.

Impacts and adaptation

Turkey is located at the eastern end of theMediterranean basin, which is expected to besignificantly hitbydroughtdue to human-caused climate change.Agricultureand food production will be strongly affected, arecent studyfound, with irrigated production at particular risk of decline as water stress increases.

Even if global temperatures are limited to 2C, the area is expected to be strongly affected by warming and, in particular,face extreme temperaturesin summer. Warmingis expected tolead to increasing desertification and to impact on human health both directly and indirectly, such as through food and water supplies.

Turkey’sfifth national communicationto the UNFCCC outlines its vulnerability to increasing levels of water stress, forest fires and the health effects of climate change, such as those due to heat waves and vector-borne diseases. It also notes Turkey’s vulnerability to sea level rise, with a population density along its coastlines that is double the rest of the country.

一个2013 OECDyabo亚博体育app下载documented increasing summer temperatures, falling winter precipitation in the western provinces and 12cm of sea level rise over the past century for the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. A further 2016studyfound an expansion of dry areas in the central and south-west regions, but increased rainfall in the north-east between 1981 and 2010.

Adaptation is mentioned only briefly in Turkey’s NDC and it has yet to submit aNational Adaptation Planto the UNFCCC. However, it did pass a2005 actto promote adaptation and protection of soil quality in areas at risk of degradation due to climate change. Its 2010strategyand 2011action plan在气候变化问题上也出现了此种政策te change adaptation, particularly with regards to water resource management.