Türkiye candidate for COP31 climate summit: Minister

ANKARA

Türkiye has declared its candidacy for the COP31 climate summit to be held in 2026, Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum has said.

“Our candidacy application to COP31 was welcomed in our bilateral meetings. We ask the countries to support our candidacy,” Kurum told reporters at the COP27 summit in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh.

Türkiye has hosted and organized very well in many humanitarian summits, COP summits and habitat meetings in the past, the minister said.

The country unveiled a revised plan for cutting its carbon emissions at the COP27 climate summit.

“We have updated our nationally determined contribution [NDC],” Kurum said at the U.N. climate conference, referring to the national plans for reducing greenhouse gases submitted by nearly 200 countries under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The new NDC calls for Türkiye to reduce its emissions by 41 percent by 2030 compared with what those emissions would have been had they continued to grow at a rate of 8 percent per year.

The Paris Agreement creates the legal environment that will ensure regulation in policies and laws in line with the goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

Within this framework, each country, every five years, shows efforts to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The agreement targets a reduction in global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050, while the government also declared another target of net zero emissions by 2053.

The ministry is preparing long-term climate strategies together with the new NDC, Kurum also said. “We will add these to the climate law. We will continue this struggle as a whole with the financial support of the climate law and the implementation of the emission trading system, with the steps to be taken by all sectors in this framework.”

Underlining that the ministry will support manufacturers that fight climate change and make investments with a circular economy approach, Kurum said, “With the understanding we have obtained from international financial institutions and in the development plan of our country, access to finance will be easier and stronger for those who invest in our budget.”