Turkey

Turkey has a Climate Change Strategy in place, and implements National Development Plans and National Energy Efficiency Action Plans. However, Turkey has not ratified the Paris Agreement and although it has commitments to improving energy efficiency and increasing the use of renewable energy, the countrys main commitments refer only to constraining emissions growth levels, which could lead to a rise in overall emissions. However, a recent Declaration on Combating Climate Change document released by the government refers to a new strategy and action plans to be prepared and put into action.

Turkeys 11th Development Plan, in the context of good governance, includes within its policies and measures commitments to conduct awareness raising and encouraging activities to ensure further involvement of women in the management and decision-making bodies in the private and public sector. The Plan also claims that active participation of citizens and all relevant sides to policy-making processes will be ensured. By implementing "different ways" of democratic participation public supervision over administration will be strengthened.

Turkeys 11th Development Plan includes objectives related to the SDGs in the context of good governance, as part of a National Strategy. At the business level, Turkey has developed sectorial sustainability research to collect sustainability information and establish best policies for sustainable development based on aggregated sectorial level analysis. Findings were shared with sectors' representatives. Firm and sectorial level data gap on sustainability will be remedied and firms will be encouraged to report on sustainability and contribute to achieve SDG 12.6. But no evidence of significant tools for voluntary business engagement with SDGs have been developed by the government. Voluntary business engagement is mostly through international cooperation and platforms.

No development of wealth accounts, including natural capital accounts or beyond GDP metrics is underway in Turkey.

As part of Turkey's New Economic Reform Programme, which commenced in March 2021, the government announced plans to strengthen the institutional and regulatory ecosystem for green finance, encourage green bond and sukuk issuance and prepare guidelines aligned with international standards. However, a recent report issued by the World Bank indicates Turkey still lacks a holistic strategic framework that aligns financial sector policies, regulations and incentives with a vision for pursuing green and resilient growth. Turkey's Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency is a member of the Financial Stability Boards Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and has stated that it's closely following the EU Green Taxonomy developments. The banks themselves have also begun to take some tentative steps forward, with the Banks Association of Turkey issuing its own voluntary Sustainability Guidelines for the Banking Sector.

The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan has the goal of establishing National Energy Efficiency Financing mechanisms to give financial support to investments on this area (planned to be implemented in 2021). The Action Plan also commits to revising procurement legislation so it accounts for life-cycle cost, rather than purchase cost - adopting efficiency criteria in public procurement in line with Turkey's 2nd Voluntary National Report which proposes to use public procurement to increase green production capacity.

In terms of monetary policy, Turkey's central bank has not adopted any green policies or initiatives to date, ranking bottom among G20 countries assessed by the Green Central Banking Scorecard. However, the Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency is a member of the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network. In 2018 the agency carried out a survey and stocktaking exercise of the Turkish banking sector's sustainability-related capacity, policies and activities.

The Turkish banking system is compliant with the Basel requirements. As such, the Banking Regulatory Agency has released a regulation to ensure risk adjusted capital calculations and stress test procedures to be strictly applied. Also, there is evidence of external agencies' stress test on Turkish Banks.

According to a report from TUSIAD (Turkish Industry and Business Association), for Turkey, control mechanisms based on the carbon trading system would be a nascent instrument, which faces deficiencies and threats including insufficient deepening of national financial markets, failure of financial auditing mechanisms and failure to eliminate deficiencies in auditing and monitoring systems. Emissions reduction certificates, hover, have been voluntarily traded for renewable energy investments. An emissions reduction strategy based on (higher) energy taxation is considered to bring high costs. Turkey is conducting mandatory emissions reporting since. In addition, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources assures that, if carbon tax is to be imposed on existing power plants than the full cost will be paid by the government, a commitment that would create an unwelcomed distortion in the market and curb the climate related effects of such a measure.

Some sectoral policies and measures are being implemented, although there are no signs of a coordinated green sectoral policy plan. Development Plan and Energy Efficiency Plan refer to some key sectors like transport, agriculture and construction. Turkey aims to manufacture its own electric vehicle to help the automotive industry competitiveness, and includes implementation of supporting program, technology and production capabilities in different areas including sensor, batteries or fuel cells to be improved. The Plan aims to introduce tax advantages for highly energy efficient, low emission, environment-friendly, small motor volume vehicles including fuel-cell, electric and hybrid vehicles. Concerning agriculture, measures seem to have a water-related focus including irrigation systems, preventing water pollution and sustainability of fish stocks. Law on Agriculture covers the issues of income levels in rural areas and preventing rural migration. A Program is being implemented (TAK) with land-based support payments for a period of up to 3 years for farmers who use environmentally-friendly techniques. In Construction, Turkey aimed at developing a strategy for a near-zero energy buildings. In the UN SG Climate summit, it committed to implement policies to drive the decarbonisation of all new buildings by 2030. Energy Efficiency Acton Plans includes certification of sustainable green buildings and settlements.

Turkeys 11th Development Plan indicates that an enterprise support package will be implemented to address the needs of technology-oriented enterprises at all stages. The Plan also includes support to cooperatives operating in priority sectors, particularly agricultural sales cooperatives, women's cooperatives and social cooperatives. There is the aim of regulating social entrepreneurship, although no further evidence of whether, and how, this is going in terms of application and coverage for "green" SMEs or social companies. The New Economy Reform Package also refers to green industrial application, offering support for green Organized Industrial Zones.

Turkeys 11th Development Plan indicates that climate change will be tackled in sectors causing GHG emissions. Within the framework of Intended National Contribution, activities for emissions control will be carried out in GHG emitting buildings, energy, industry transportation, waste, agriculture and forestry sectors. However, Turkey has no formal carbon budget commitment and has not ratified the Paris Agreement. The current objective refers to efforts to constraining emissions growth, by cutting emissions by up to 21% (including land use, land change and forestry) against a business as usual scenario. Under the Partnership for Market Readiness project, the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization has set the basis for a possible application of an emission trading scheme in Turkey, with World Bank providing the technical assistance.

Turkey is one of the leading markets in terms of new renewable energy capacity additions. But considering its technical capacity the targets are not sufficient. For instance, Turkey aims to increase electricity generation from renewable energy sources and ensure the necessary planning and investments to ensure safe integration of renewable generation to the grid. The share of renewable sources in generation is expected to reach 38.8% by 2023 compared to 32.5% achieved in 2018 (this exceeds the original plan of electricity generation from renewables by 2023 of the Climate Change Strategy). There are policies to encourage energy efficiency in transport (tax advantages for energy efficient vehicles) and agriculture (energy-efficient tractors, harvesters, irrigation systems, and promotion of renewable energy sources for production processes). No targets have been set beyond 2023.

No recent evidence found in relation to green or inclusive job strategies, beyond ILO assessments.

In terms of traditional safety net measures, poor segments of the population in Turkey are provided aid for food, fuel, education, childbirth and family expenses to raise their living standards, as wells as to try to prevent intergenerational transmission of poverty. The countrys Climate Change strategy aims to minimise climate-related risks for vulnerable groups living below the poverty line. However, there are no specific measures to promote specifically green-related measures to improve standards of living.

In the context of rule of law and democratization, the Development Plan, Turkey aims to ensure effective participation of NGOs in decision-making processes; consolidate organized civil society and ensure that its organizations have effective participation to public decision-making processes. In fact, this National development plan was prepared with a participatory approach. Similarly, the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan was also prepared with "active participation and contribution" from NGOs and sectoral stakeholders. General and sectoral workshops were held to solicit opinions of relevant institutions and organisations. However, these participatory processes are used primarily at the technical report level, and are not reflected in the main policy document.

Turkey has implemented a system of wage subsidies through tax and social security premium incentives provided to women, young people and minimum wage earners. There are also projects aimed to socially and economically empower women with knowledge and skills (my syster), but there are no particular measures aimed at improving social protections through green-related measures.

Turkeys Voluntary National reporting indicates that the policy framework for SDG14 includes expanding marine and coastal protected areas, ensuring efficient stock management, improving aquaculture. In relation to this last point, measures include information and communication technologies, certification and inspection of facilities and regulations to prevent decreases in stocks as results of overfishing. These efforts are included in the countrys Marine Environment Strategy initiated in 2018. Regarding SDG15, the Voluntary National states that work is undertaken to fight desertification, land degradation, soil pollution, deforestation and drought risk, including a Desertification Monitoring system and risk map. In addition, Turkey has in place a National Biological Diversity strategy and Action Plan and aims to increase its forest land to cover 30% of the country by 2023. However, many conflicts remain at the implementation stage. For instance, implementation of environmental impact assessment procedures for energy or other heavy industry investments is lacking.

No evidence found of discussions regarding any type of natural capital accounts. Evidence found only seems to consider biodiversity inventories.

Under the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization (the focal point for UNFCCC), there is a Climate Change and Air Management Coordination Board, which also includes social partners, mostly from the private sector. This is the official mechanism through which MoEU collects inputs from both the public and private stakeholders, and if deemed necessary experts are invited for hearings in specific issues.

No evidence found of fiscal reforms based on nature or considerations regarding subsidies that cause environmental damage, despite relatively high environemntal taxation levels in Turkey.