Turkey Addressing Climate Change

Turkey Addressing Climate Change



Feb 2007 - Turkey is taking 
steps to respond to the threat of climate change. The Turkish 
Grand National Assembly Tuesday adopted a decision to set up a 
Research Commission on the causes and effects of global 
warming in the country. 
The new Commission is expected to consist of 14 members of 
Parliament who will provide input as the country attempts to 
adapt to climate change. 
In addition, earlier this week, Turkey's first national 
communication was submitted to the United Nations Framework 
Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC. Turkey acceded to the 
Convention in May 2004. 
The report was prepared by the Ministry of Environment and 
Forestry with the technical support of the United Nations 
Development Programme and the financial support of the Global 
Environment Facility, GEF. 
Signed by Turkish Environment and Forestry Minister Osman 
Pepe, the report offers a brief review of Turkey’s efforts on 
climate change and includes a revised version of the country's 
greenhouse gas inventory. 
Turkish Environment and Forestry Minister Osman Pepe 
"This document is important for the dissemination of the 
pressing issue of climate change, as well as in educating and 
raising the awareness of society regarding future adverse 
impacts of global warming, while providing new opportunities 
for the development of cleaner technologies through fostering 
the advance of science," wrote Pepe in his introduction to the 
national communication. 
Certainly, climate change issues will be "relevant to the 
national and international agenda in the future," Pepe wrote. 
Since Turkey was not a party to the UNFCCC when the Kyoto 
Protocol was adopted in 1997, Turkey is not yet a party to the 
protocol. 
Thus, Turkey does not have a quantified emission limit or 
reduction target in the first commitment period of the 
protocol. 
The new Research Commission is expected to produce a study 
that might introduce a new dimension in Turkey’s approach to 
the first and consecutive commitment periods of the Kyoto 
Protocol. 
Right now, public awareness of the danger of climate change is 
building across the country. 
Drought in Turkey was severe in 2006 
Turkey experienced one of its driest and hottest winter 
seasons over the past several months. At the end of October, 
the country faced severe floods, the worst in the past 100 
years, which resulted in 40 casualties across the southeastern 
region. 
These extreme events and the February 2 report from the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, accelerated 
discussions and raised public awareness of global warming at 
the national level, says Yunus Arikan, Climate Change Project 
manager with the Regional Environmental Center Turkey. 
In its report on the scientific evidence of global warming, 
endorsed by 113 governments, the IPCC warned that climate 
change is already occurring, that human activities are "very 
likely" responsible, and that warming will continue for 
centuries even if greenhouse gas emissions are stablized now. 
The Ministry of Environment and Forestry has designated REC 
Turkey as the National Focal Point on UNFCCC Article 6, 
covering education, training and public awareness. 
Since then, says Arikan, REC Turkey has been publishing 
"Cemre," the first and only climate change bulletin in Turkish 
and has been implementing other climate awareness projects 
with the support of national and international partners and 
international donors. 
Turkey's Afsin Elbistan-B power plant at Kahramanmaras is 
fired by lignite, low grade brown coal. The region around the 
plant site has about a third of Turkey’s recoverable lignite 
reserves. 
REC Turkey is one of the 17 country offices of the Regional 
Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, 
headquartered in Szentendre, Hungary. 
Established in 1990 by the United States, the European 
Commission and Hungary, the REC is a non-partisan, 
non-advocacy, not-for-profit international organization aims 
to assist in solving regional environmental problems. It 
operates by promoting cooperation among nongovernmental 
organizations, governments and businesses and by supporting 
the free exchange of information and public participation in 
environmental decision making. 
Within this framework, REC Turkey has developed two key 
publications, hosted stakeholder workshops in major cities, 
and organized technical training courses for key negotiators 
of government, research and business institutions. 
REC Turkey also facilitated participation of the first Turkish 
NGO in a UNFCCC Conference of Parties in 2005, and enabled 
direct contacts between Turkish NGOs and international 
constituencies and government negotiators. 
To further raise public awareness, says Arikan, Turkish 
environmental NGOs are planning to organize a big 
demonstration in Istanbul on April 28. 
In the near future, REC Turkey also is planning to play a more 
active role in the development and improvement of voluntary 
carbon markets in the country, an idea that Arikan says is 
becoming very popular in the Turkish business community.

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