Are Turkey’s “special circumstances” still valid in the new climate regime after the Paris Agreement? I would like to start to answer this question by walking you through the historical context of Turkey’s involvement in climate change negotiations. Overall, though Turkey did join the international process in time, no real progress was made thereafter. Initially, Turkey was one of the countries that contributed to the preparation of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s resolution “Protection of Global Climate for Present and Future Generations of Mankind” (A/RES/43/53, December 6, 1988). In reaching this resolution, the General Assembly acted on the initiative taken by Malta in proposing an item entitled “Conservation of climate as part of the common heritage of mankind” to express concern that human activities were capable of changing global climate patterns, thereby threatening generations both present and future with possibly severe economic and social consequences. In Turkey, national climate change efforts began in 1991–1992 through international work and efforts undertaken toward the UN Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee (INC). As a predecessor to the contemporary climate change negotiations, the INC meetings culminated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992. Certain issues that were not discussed at the UNCED, such as the debates concerning desertification, were addressed in the course of time, ultimately yielding what is now referred to as the Rio Conventions.Footnote ¹ Turkey objected to its initial listing in the annexes of the UNFCCC, also referred to as the Framework Convention,Footnote ² and for a long time requested that it be removed from both of the UNFCCC’s annexes (Annex I and Annex II), which list the industrialized OECD members and economies in transition with carbon-intensive economies.Footnote ³ This demand emerged mainly due to the historical responsibility of industrialized countries pursuant to their high-carbon development patterns and their moral obligation to mitigate their emissions and provide climate financeFootnote ⁴ for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries so as to better enable them to leapfrog into low-carbon, resilient economies. The main determinant of Turkey’s position on this issue was the argument relating to Turkey’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions and per capita GDP being much lower than the European Union (EU) and OECD average. Consequently, Turkey fought its way through the UNFCCC negotiations to defend its position as a developing country, despite the fact that it was not part of any developing country group, such as the Group of 77 and China or the Like Minded Group of Developing Countries.Footnote ⁵ Due to other matters regarding the Framework Convention, and with the influence of the United States and the EU, Turkey’s request to be removed from both annexes did not receive support (except from a few countries, such as Pakistan and Azerbaijan) and for a long time went unapproved with reference to Turkey’s development targets and the high share of fossil fuels in its energy mix.Footnote ⁶ However, when it became clear that removal from both annexes was impossible,Footnote ⁷ Turkey adopted a different approach at the UN Climate Change Conference in The Hague (the Sixth Conference of the Parties) in November 2000: there, Turkey proposed to be considered—as was the case for certain formerly socialist states in eastern Europe after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)—a country to be granted “special circumstances.”Footnote ⁸ This approach did not include being removed from both annexes, but rather meant removal from Annex II, in which OECD and EU countries were listed. At The Hague, Turkey formally proposed an amendment mentioning its early stage of industrialization and providing the condition that, in accordance with the UNFCCC’s principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” if Turkey should enjoy the benefits and favorable conditions granted to former socialist states in their transition to a market economy, then it would be removed from Annex II, which listed OECD member states and economies in transition with rapidly declining yet still carbon-intensive economies after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but would remain in Annex I, which listed OECD member states that were considered developed countries.Footnote ⁹ Turkey’s request was finally accepted at the Seventh Conference of the Parties, held in Marrakesh between October 29 and November 6, 2001.Footnote ¹⁰ Turkey’s much debated “special circumstances” were summarized in the Marrakesh outcomes as follows:

Although this decision’s political consequences were clear in the sense that Turkey was thus allowed to position itself as distinct from other industrialized economies (though not so much as to be regarded as being on equal terms with non-Annex developing countries), the reasoning was vaguely explained in the UN jargon of the time. Eventually, on May 24, 2004, Turkey became a party to the UNFCCC, as, unfortunately, the 188th party to the Framework Convention. During the early days of ratification, the countries had a more favorable view of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. Turkey finally ratified the Kyoto Protocol on August 29, 2009, but only after acknowledging that it would have no binding emissions reduction targets, with some opposition in the parliament.Footnote ¹² Here a reminder is in order: Turkey was not included in the annexes of the Kyoto Protocol because it was not a party to the UNFCCC when the protocol was ratified, and accordingly, as it was not included in the protocol’s annexes, Turkey undertook no emissions reduction or stabilizing commitments with reference to a particular period. Hence, insofar as it had no emissions reduction and stabilizing commitments, Turkey was subject only to the general principle and provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.

What, then, does climate justice mean for Turkey on national and international levels after more than two decades of engagement with the international climate regime? We can discuss this highly important issue by making a connection with climate ethics: what are the disciplinary and interdisciplinary opportunities and challenges of climate change studies in Turkey? In the early days, climatology in Turkey was a subject considered solely in relation to meteorology. Today, however, it requires consideration beyond this merely technical aspect. Climate science is an emerging field that involves technology and emissions trading, in addition to constituting a new area of study for social scientists across disciplines. It has, that is, emerged as a new multidisciplinary field of study. Among the more important issues in this respect are studying the loss and damage and the vulnerability and risk associated with climate change. It is important to analyze these issues holistically, since it is only possible to perform vulnerability and risk analyses properly when one considers social and economic matters in addition to technical and technological ones.

This also brings us to the issue of making sound policies informed by science. What do access to climate finance and science-based targetsFootnote ¹³ for climate policies mean in Turkey? Academic work and project reports conducted and produced in and on Turkey, unless actually needed by the public sector, are unfortunately little used: they are simply published and then forgotten, though they may occasionally surface following a request from the UN or EU. This brings me to a few additional issues I consider important in this context. One of these is the composition of the Turkish delegation that attends the UNFCCC meetings. This delegation, led by the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning (Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı), includes no real experts in the true sense of the word, and moreover its membership is constantly changing. Unfortunately, the negotiation team that attends these meetings is not a well-established team capable of receiving and synthesizing scientific contributions and delivering science-based opinions on Turkey’s behalf. I see it as a necessity that a team be formed that is able to defend Turkey’s “common but differentiated responsibility”Footnote ¹⁴ in these talks. This is an important shortcoming, as it is not possible at present to claim that Turkey attends these meetings with a team that is capable on either scientific and technical or diplomatic, international, and intergovernmental fronts. Unfortunately, only a limited number of accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs), universities, and business organizations are able to attend the UNFCCC meetings. In order to be efficient, however, the Turkish delegation must include, among others, a variety of social scientists, ecologists, and experts on energy and agriculture.

With the Paris Agreement, the world is moving in a new direction. But what are the key outcomes of this global agreement, and how will they be relevant for Turkey? These are the questions that the contributors to this roundtable seek to answer. To begin, the three pillars of this new regime are the Paris Agreement itself, the related decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP), and the Lima-Paris Action Agenda. The first of these is an iterative and legally binding text that covers the “intentions” of countries to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions. The second pillar, the decisions of the COP, is a set of decisions agreed upon unanimously with the aim of accelerating the implementation of the agreement. Finally, the Lima-Paris Action Agenda gives an important role to non-state actors—such as municipalities, regions, sub-national authorities, the private sector, and civil society—both in increasing resilience against the adverse impacts of climate change and in reducing carbon footprints.

To sum up, if Turkey does not correctly read the new climate regime in the context of the Paris Agreement, and if it does not consider and discuss how to take part more effectively therein, it will not be able to properly review and update its own five-year climate change national policies and plans through the year 2030. If Turkey instead simply continues with its “business as usual” attitude in the face of this very important international agreement, this will, in turn, make Turkey less vocal and less decisive on the global arena. Such an attitude runs the risk of making Turkey further isolate itself and withdraw into its own shell—and this is a risk that we should certainly not take in the context of international climate change negotiations.