Parliament prepares guide for Ankara’s climate policy

Önder Yılmaz – ANKARA

A report prepared by a commission in Turkey’s parliament after the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement reveals a series of determinations and recommendations that Ankara and the Turkish people should follow in a challenging “transformation process.”

While the report states that Turkey’s ratification of the international agreement was a pleasing development and would open new horizons, it also emphasized that there are more significant steps to be taken to reach net zero emissions by 2053.

Stressing the necessity of addition of a “climate” department to the Environment Ministry and the establishment of the “climate presidency,” the report also includes a series of findings and recommendations that will guide transformation in Ankara’s climate policy.

Recommendations

- A ‘water law’ should be enacted for the protection and management of water.

- Small and medium-sized farmers should be directed to develop alternative water resources by establishing ‘farm reservoirs’ in their fields to meet their irrigation water needs.

- Due to the advantage of being used quickly in cases of drought, groundwater needs to be reserved for use in drinking water, especially in emergencies such as war or natural disaster.

- Necessary measures should be taken against the change of precipitation regimes and the shift of climate zones due to climate change.

- In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from agriculture, necessary measures should be taken primarily to reduce the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from animals.

- A ‘Just Transition Mechanism’ should be established and socioeconomic priorities should be made in order to ensure that the steps taken towards climate change are managed fairly.

- In order to understand the global climate change and its effects, it is necessary to arrange the curricula in the textbooks in a way that gives the students an active role.

- Scientific surveys and inventory studies on desertification, flood and avalanche risk areas all over Turkey should be accelerated, and a data bank should be established.

- Protected area management should be combined under one mechanism in order to eliminate the problems arising from the management of protected areas by different institutions.

- Forestlands should be operated with a new understanding, and appropriate management systems should be developed in light of technological developments.

- Optimistic and pessimistic scenarios should be prepared in order to make predictions about possible future hazards in parallel with the climate scenarios recognized in the world.

- A major mobilization should be initiated to ensure heat isolation in buildings.

- Urgent measures should be taken for rehabilitation and restoration in order to save the lands under the threat of severe erosion and desertification as soon as possible.