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Elif Gondzyeli
September 3, 202017, September 2020
Two months before the conclusion of the Paris weather agreement in 2015, Turkey’s communities and NGOs wrote to Francois Hollande, the French president, asking French power company Engie to cancel a coal project.
Civil society teams explained the damage to Ada’s new coal allocation in Iskenderun Bay, Adana Province, southern Turkey, and called on the French government to take responsibility, as host of the UN weather summit, and to reorient French investment and financing in Turkey towards energy power and renewable energy. Three weeks later, Engie announced that she would avoid her new coal allocations around the world, starting with Adana’s, and her investments in Turkey in renewable energy.
Five years after the sigh of community relief, they are asking the Chinese government to do the same with the Hunutlu EMBA coal project.
The 1. 3 gigawatt coal power plant is China’s largest foreign direct investment in Turkey and a key allocation for the Belt and Road Initiative (BIS) and Turkey’s Central Corridor, a primary infrastructure initiative that the Turks consider complementary to the BIS.
There are already 3 coal-fired power plants in Iskenderun Bay and there are also other polluting commercial services. air quality.
When Engie canceled his assignment to Turkey, the country had more than 70 new coal power plants planned, 29 of which were planned for Iskenderun Bay. Only 3 of the 70 planned assignments are operational and more than one part has been abandoned. As of June, there were still 32 pending, but only Hunutlu is under construction.
Public opposition to coal projects in Turkey, motivated by pollution considerations, has been effective. The president responded to public campaigns by vetting a 2019 law that would have prolonged exemptions for some coal power plants from environmental regulations. of these coal-fired power plants were suspended in January because they complied with environmental measures.
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the link between anthrax and pollution. Zonguldak, one of Turkey’s major coal mining cities, blocked because the highest degrees of lung disease in the city put citizens at greater risk.
Other points also make coal energy less attractive, adding economic turbulence, devaluation of the Turkish currency, emerging energy costs, strangely low energy demand, competitiveness of renewable energy and oversupply of electricity in the market.
Due to the growing budget deficit, which is mainly due to forced imports, the government responded by offering special subsidies for local lignite power plant projects, but even those heavily subsidized projects, which have promises of value and electricity acquisition, have not gained expected attention from investors.
Unfortunately, unrest in the coal sector has not led to greater government policy. The Turkish government is one of the few that has yet ratified the Paris Agreement and, despite the country’s broad prospects for wind and solar power, has been slow to capture this opportunity.
Clear energy and climate policy plans for 2030 and 2050 should show strong signals to the energy market, with an ambitious track record of when the country’s carbon emissions will peak.
It’s possible. According to its energy vision, Turkey aims to produce 30% of its combined energy from renewable resources until 2023. On 24 May, 90% of the country’s electricity production came here from renewable resources. it was a record, paving the way for even greater accumulation in Turkey’s renewable energy share. Recent research shows that Turkey can simply increase the percentage of solar and wind energy to 21% until 2026, without any negative effects on the Turkish grid, suggesting that Turkey could exceed its renewable energy target if sufficiently good policies were implemented.
Turkey has introduced its own Middle Corridor, resuming its historic direction of industry linking Asia and Europe on the Silk Road, as a separate but parallel allocation with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The Turk believes that the integration of the Middle Corridor into the BPI will be a win-win strategy for the two countries, which signed an agreement in 2015 to link the two initiatives.
Chinese investment in renewable projects is expected to accumulate in Turkey in the short to long term under the BPI. China can simply drive the transition to low-carbon energy in Turkey by pointing out its goal of bringing meteorological leadership to the BPI rather than pursuing high -carbon projects like Hunutlu.
The European Green Pact, the European Commission’s flagship mission, is based on a commitment to climate neutrality until 2050 and the roadmap proposes the adoption of a weather law and emissions relief up to 55% until 2030.
Achieving this ambitious mid-century purpose will have global repercussions, particularly for major trading partners and applicant countries.
Turkey’s relationship with the EU is confusing and its accession procedure has been bumpy, however, the country is ready to adopt the EU acquis – binding rights and obligations not unusual for EU countries – on certain sectoral policies.
As candidate countries move forward in their negotiations to join the EU, the EU’s sectoral policies are opened as chapters of what has been adopted, which are concrete steps that candidate countries will have to take to join the EU. 27, on environmental and meteorological policy, was opened to Turkey in 2006.
The Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA) is a component of the EU’s external budget and is used to prepare club applicants to fulfill the obligations of the EU club. Turkey has won a really large budget to take measures to align its environmental legislation. These budgets have been used, for example, to expand Turkish water legislation in accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive. in 2014.
European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said the Green Pact “will be the engine of recovery” from ongoing economic and fitness crises. used to praise candidate countries that align with the EU programme.
The IPA budget is the EU’s only source of cash for Turkey. As an emerging economy, the country has also been the largest beneficiary of the meteorological funding of European public banks, the E EBSR and the EBRD.
In addition, Turkey is the EU’s fifth largest commercial spouse in 2019, and Turkey’s main export market is the EU (42. 4%). As one of the new measures to prevent carbon leakage, the EU has proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism that would help avoid less expensive imports from countries with less stringent climate policies. Within Turkey’s high-carbon industries, there are already discussions about the need to prepare for potential negative impacts.
Recent studies also point out that electricity generated through coal in neighbouring countries is being filtered into the EU grid, hampering EU emission relief efforts. Proposals are made to expand the carbon border adjustment mechanism to put a value on imports of electricity. This would inspire Turkey – a country with an oversupply of electricity that is expanding its interconnection with the EU grid – to increase the share of renewable energy in its energy mix.
Before the UN climate talks in Glasgow next year, joint climate leadership efforts between the EU and China can help Turkey and the Countries of the Western Balkans increase their ambitions. These countries are joining the EU and need to attract Chinese investment under the BPI. postponed, countries in the region put roadmaps in position to emerge from the existing crisis with a green, low-carbon and ambitious programme in line with the EU Green Pact. China can help achieve this by shifting its investment from coal projects to an economic transition to climate neutrality.
We encourage you to republish Articles from the Chinese Dialogue, online or printed, the Creative Commons license. To get started, read our republishing commands.
Elif Gundzyeli
Elif is the coal policy coordinator for the Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, which deals with EU policies to facilitate the immediate and sufficiently good elimination of coal. She has worked for CAN Europe since 2015, in the past in the role of political coordinator of Turkey. He has 15 years of experience applying for Turkish and Belgian NGOs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Koo, Istanbul, and a master’s degree in environmental social sciences from the University of Kent, Canterbury.
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