Türkiye

Critically Insufficient4°C+
World
NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.
Highly insufficient< 4°C
World
NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.
Insufficient< 3°C
World
NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.
2°C Compatible< 2°C
World
NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.
1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C
World
This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.
Role model<< 1.5°C
World
This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.
1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C
World
This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Overview

The 7th National Communication has again provided two scenarios: a Business-As-Usual Scenario and a “With Measures Scenario”. Compared to historical trends, both scenarios are based on GDP elasticities significantly higher than historical ones. GDP forecasts reported in the projections are also significantly higher than recent GDP assumptions (IMF, 2018; PWC, 2017). The CAT has decided to apply more recent GDP growth estimates and we have adjusted the GDP elasticity in our projections.

With currently implemented policies and adjusted GDP assumptions, Turkey is expected to achieve emissions levels of 914–792 MtCO2e in 2030 (excluding LULUCF).

The upper-bound projections for the current policies scenario are based on the “with measures” scenario including a nuclear target for 2025 (see details in policies included in the Current Policy Projections section).

The lower-boundprojections for the current policy scenario are based on historical trends of GDP elasticity of energy and industry GHG emissions between 1990 and 2017 with adjusted GDP on more recent growth estimates (IMF, 2018; PWC, 2017), see assumptions section for more details in the calculations.

Our current policy projections show that Turkey is expected to overachieve its INDC target.

The National Climate Change Strategy (2010-2023), National Climate Change Action Plan (2011-2023) and the 10th Development Plan (2014-2018) provide the basis for most of Turkey’s climate change policies and measures. As stated in the 2018 7th National Communication, the 11th Development Plan is “under preparation” although it was expected to be published by the end of 2018.

Energy supply

Economic arguments set strong incentives for Turkey to prioritise renewables to secure its energy supply. The ongoing reduction in the costs of renewable energy technology and storage mean that reliable power can be obtained cost-effectively without resorting to coal-powered generation.

Combined with the large co-benefits of reduced air pollution from fossil fuel use, as well as projected economic damages from climate change, this raises questions about the impact of the suggested pathway on future economic development in Turkey.

The uncertainties and risks around nuclear construction make the technology unreliable in terms of planning the necessary power system decarbonisation, which needs to happen globally by 2050 (IPCC, 2018). See more details in the “Nuclear” section.

It makes more sense – on environmental, economic, energy security and social grounds – for Turkey’s energy investments to focus more on renewables.

Coal

Turkey continues to plan on meeting its increased energy demand, which is expected to increase by 4% to 6% annually (Erdin & Ozkaya, 2019), by building new coal-fired power plants (Istanbul Policy Center, 2016). One of the goals in Turkey’s Strategic Plan 2015–2019 is to increase the annual electricity generation from domestic coal by 54% above 2012 levels by 2019 (Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, 2016).

2018 saw Turkey breaking its record in domestic coal production, which reached 101.5 million tonnes (Anadolu Agency, 2019), while in May 2019 the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources announced forthcoming tenders for coal mines acquisition (Ahval, 2019b). In 2018, two new power plants in Turkey (Yumus Emre and Çan-2) started operations and the Soma Kolin Power Plant totalling 1.2 GW of additional capacity is under construction, with completion expected by the end of 2019 (Climate Action Network Europe, 2019). The government is continuing to press for a large expansion in coal power with close to 37 GW of planned power plants (announced, pre-permitted and permitted) (Coalswarm, 2019). This stands in strong contrast to the global need to reduce the use of coal in electricity by two-thirds over 2020-2030 and to zero by 2050 (IPCC, 2018).

Apart from the impact on emissions, this would add severe stress to already drought-prone regions, increasing the threat to water demand, by adding competition with other water users. At least 7 GW of the proposed coal-fired power plants in Turkey are to be built in areas already experiencing water over-withdrawal and baseline water stress (Greenpeace, 2016). This especially concerns the plans to build a 5870 MW lignite power plant in Konya Karapinar. Sinking water levels would be damaging for agriculture in the region and threaten the livelihood and access to fresh water for 60,000 people (TEMA, 2013). Even those plants planned in the vicinity of the coast would still use significant amounts of fresh water for scrubbing air pollutants, thus raising water demand in the region. There is also always a risk of thermal pollution when using seawater for cooling (Greenpeace, 2016)and no measures appear to have been put in place to mitigate this.

Nuclear

Turkey is also embarking on nuclear power plant production. Having no nuclear power at the moment, the Energy and Natural Resources Minister announced that between 2023 and 2030 Turkey will put three nuclear power plants into operation, expected to meet 10% of the country-wide electricity consumption (Daily Sabah, 2017).

For the first one, the Turkish government awarded a contract to the Russian company Rosatom to commission a 4-unit, 4.8 GW nuclear power plant by 2025 (World Nuclear Association, 2017a). Construction of the first 1200MW block in Akkuyu - Unit 1 - started in 2018. While the completion of the basemat for the plant has been recently announced (World Nuclear News, 2019), the company has also begun working on the plans for Unit 2 and expects to receive a construction licence this year (World Nuclear News, 2019).

In May 2013 Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement with Japan for the second plant, the 4,480 MW Nuclear Power Plant in Sinop, northern Turkey also in an earthquake zone, but Japan pulled out in December 2018, citing construction delays and rising costs (Daily Sabah, 2019c). Despite the persistent incertitude regarding the effective implementation of the project (Ahval, 2019a), there is still discussion over a construction licence being granted this year (Daily Sabah, 2019b).

While this can decrease the emissions intensity of the Turkish power system, in June 2017 European Parliament called on the Turkish government to halt its plans for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear plant, pointing to the risks of severe earthquakes in that region (European Parliament, 2017), an issue that has also been raised by some environmental organisations (Environmental Justice Atlas, 2017; Reuters, 2011).

These concerns were then reiterated in the resolution adopted at the October Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The assembly expressed its “deep concern regarding the construction in an earthquake-prone region and asks the Turkish Government to join the Espoo Convention and to take into account all concerns expressed also by its own citizens” (PACE, 2018). The European Parliament voted against the plant in March2019 (TRT World, 2019).

In addition, the guaranteed rate of 123.5 USD/MWh for 70% of the energy generated in the first nuclear power plant (World Nuclear Association, 2017b)is already above the cost for many wind and solar energy sources (IRENA, 2017), and is likely to be significantly more expensive than these alternatives in the mid and late 2020s, when the nuclear power plants are scheduled to go online.

Renewables

Turkey’s 2014 National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) targeted an increase in renewable power capacity from 25.5 GW in 2013 to 61 GW in 2023. Its trajectory set out a gradual rise in renewables from 13.5% in 2012 to 15.3% in 2015 and 20.5% in 2023 (The Republic of Turkey, 2014).

The government has introduced in 2016 the Renewable Energy Resource Areas (YEKA) strategy, a tender process to procure the production of renewable energy on ‘Renewable Energy Designated Areas,’ (REDAs) which are deemed most suitable for energy generation and the first auctions were awarded for a Solar PV plant in March 2017 and for a Wind onshore plant in August 2017 (Sarı, Saygın, & Lucas, 2019). A third wind onshore auction (1GW) has recently (May 2019) beem awarded to the German-Turkish consortia (Enercon-Enerjisa) (Daily Sabah, 2019a).

The process requires developers to include domestic businesses, establish domestic factories, create employment for the local labour force and invest in R&D. The first 1GW wind onshore awarded auction to the consortium iemens Gamesa – Türkerler - Kalyon announced to have chosen the location of the turbine factory to be built (in the Aegean city of İzmir) and should be completed by end of this year (IZKA, 2019).

While the 2017 auctioning process was successful, the 1.2 GW off-shore wind auction initially announced for June 2018 has been postponed to 2019 at the earliest. This was followed by the cancellation of the second solar PV YEKA auction, originally planned for January 2019. So even though the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has new plans for an additional 10 GW of solar PV and 10 GW of wind capacity to be installed in the coming decade (Sarı et al., 2019), if the delays for renewables experienced so far were to continue, we are not confident this timeline will be met..

At the same time the 2.8 GW of projects that received preliminary licenses at the end of 2017 remain unclear (WindPower Monthly, 2018). The YEKA Strategy intends to boost the renewable energy development industry through requiring the domestic production of renewable energy technologies and proportional requirements on domestic company ownership and labour force. (British Chamber of Commerce Turkey, 2016). Local production requirements combined with the country’s unsteady economy seems to have destabilised the first solar PV awarded auction to the South-Korean-Turkish consortia (Hanwha Q Cells and Kalyon Enerji) which was supposed to start production end of 2018 and has not happened yet (PV-Magazine, 2019).

Gas

In 2013 the biggest share of Turkey’s total primary energy supply was natural gas with 43.8%,. It plans to increase the use of domestic resources primarily (such as coal), and to reduce the share of natural gas in electricity generation to 38% in 2019 (Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, 2015).

However, due to its strategic location and the increasing demand on Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) worldwide, Turkey is aiming to become a gas trading hub by developing its storage and regasification capacities : two new floating storage and regasification units (FSRU) planned by 2023 when the second FSRU was commissioned in January 2018 (DAILY SABAH, 2019).

However, the CAT cautioned in June 2017 that natural gas has a limited role to play as a bridging fuel in the power sector and runs the risk of overshooting the Paris Agreement long-term temperature goal - or creating stranded assets (Climate Action Tracker, 2017).

Industry

Industrial process emissions account for around 14% of Turkey’s GHG emissions (excl. LULUCF) (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2018a). Turkey aims to use a mix of targets and support schemes to improve energy efficiency in the industry sector. There are four main approaches envisaged in the National Energy Efficiency Plan.

First, the government aims to scale up cogeneration systems for large industrial enterprises with heat needs exceeding 20 MW. Each industry subsector will have to achieve a 10% reduction in energy intensity by 2023. Energy efficiency projects are to be supported by low-interest loans. The government also aims to harmonise the legislation of environment-friendly design and product labelling with EU standards.

Transport

Transport emissions account for around 18% of Turkey’s GHG emissions (excl. LULUCF) (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2018b). Turkey has a limited number of policies in place to reduce transport emissions. The 2014 National Renewable Energy Action Plan calls for a 10% share of renewable energy in the transport sector by 2023, and the National Climate Change Action Plan (2011–2023) calls for an increase of the share of rail in freight transportation of 15% and of 10% in passenger transportation. All new vehicles must comply with EURO 6 standards, but no fuel economy standards are in place. Certain government offices will be required to shift to EVs by 2021 (Finans Haberler, 2018).

Buildings

The 2018 Energy Efficiency Action sets out various measures to improve energy efficiency, and states that in 2019 a strategy for near zero-energy buildings will be developed.

Agriculture

According to the 2019 National Inventory Report, Agriculture emissions in 2017 accounted for 12% of Turkey’s GHG emissions (excl. LULUCF). Turkey has an ambitious target for increasing agricultural productivity by 2023, aiming to be in the top five producers globally, suggesting we can expect a significant increase of GHG emissions in this sector. Currently, agricultural activities are the primary contributors of CH4 and NO, 55.5% of CH4 emissions and 77.6% of N2O emissions original from agricultural activities (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2018a). Although Turkey considers the Agriculture sector in its National Climate Change Action Plan (2011-2023), it does not seem to have a concrete target in place to reduce GHG emissions.

Forestry

Turkey aims to increase its forest land to cover 30% of the country by 2023 (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2018b).

Waste

Over 95% of the waste generated in Turkey is sent to landfills (OECD, 2016). The European Environment Agency notes that an extraordinary effort is required by the government, local authorities and the private sector to ensure proper implementation of waste regulation (Bakas & Milios, 2013). In its third biennial report Turkey notes that the greatest mitigation is expected in the waste sector, through policies such as rehabilitation of unmanaged waste sites and recovery of methane gas from landfill gas (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, 2018b).

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