Turkey aims to secure financial, technological aid at Paris climate meet

While Turkey might find it easier to find itself in a place in the new climate change regime, its main focus at the Paris summit will be to secure financial and technological assistance on emission mitigation, says Semra Cerit Mazlum, a prominent associate professor at Marmara University in IstanbulOne of Turkey's main focus in the Paris climate summit that will kick off on Nov. 29 will be to secure financial and technological assistance on its efforts to mitigate green gas emissions, said a scholar. 

But as Turkey is set to continue on an ambitious development strategy, the government national plan to decrease its emissions is based on doing practically nothing, said Semra Cerit Mazlum.

Can you summarize Turkey's policy on climate change up until the Paris summit?

In the 1990s, countries were divided into categories. Annex 1 included developed countries, whereas annex 2 included only OECD countries, and as a member of the OECD, Turkey was categorized under both annex 1 and annex 2. Therefore, in contrast to annex 1 countries which were only committed to emission mitigation, Turkey was also committed to financially and technologically assisting developing countries, which were categorized as non-annex 1. 

Claiming that this categorization was not fair, Turkey has built its policy for the past 25 years on trying to get out of both annex 1 and 2. It succeeded in extracting itself from annex 2 in 2001 and became part of the U.N. convention on climate change in 2005. 

Turkey is aware of the seriousness of the problem of climate change. There is a conviction that measures are needed. But the official discourse is based on the fact that its level of development is not sufficient to meet the expectations regarding it.