Turkey’s green development revolution initiative offers huge opportunities: Official

Nuray Babacan- Ankara

Turkey’s Green Development Revolution offers huge opportunities for the country to become a center of significant economic activities, such as production, trade, and energy, Ziya Altunyaldız, the head of the parliamentary industry commission, has said.

Speaking at a preparatory meeting for “Eco Climate, International Economy and Climate Change,” which Turkey will hold between March 30 and 31, Altunyaldız made a presentation, including information on the works conducted jointly with the European Parliament.

The purpose of the summit is to turn Turkey into a production base which completes its green transformation.

The preparatory meeting was organized in the country’s capital, hosted by the Ankara Chamber of Trade (ATO), with the participation of scientists and university rectors.

Wide-ranging issue, such as the cost of the green transformation and necessary steps to be taken toward this major conversion were discussed at this meeting. In his presentation, Altunyaldız noted that the rules of the game are changing completely amid the climate crisis, which costs the economies across the globe trillions of dollars. Global GDP will shrink between 15 percent to 20 percent if nationals fail to take steps to reverse the current trend by 2050, while developing nations may see their national income decline up to 30 percent, according to Altunyaldız.

He particularly noted that costs spiked more than 100 percent in the world, which is triggered by the disruptions in logistics.

“All those developments are forcing the U.S. and Europe to turn to geographically closer regions for supply security, and the European Green Deal has become the main driver of this transformation.”

This transformation and the change in the rules of the game offer huge opportunities to Turkey, he said.

“Turkey, with its vision of ‘green development revolution’ and its big potential to undergo a transformation in various fields, such as trade, energy, and industry, may become an important base of production,” Altunyaldız added.

The Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees at the end of the century, entered into force in Turkey in November last year.

In September last year, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey would become a party to the Paris Agreement at his speech at the United Nations General Assembly. On Oct. 6, 2021, the Turkish Grand National Assembly approved the Paris Agreement.