Political leverage, not environmental protection, behind Turkey's move to ratify Kyoto?

Political concerns shadow environment protection in Kyoto move

Wednesday, June 4, 2008
MUSTAFA OĞUZANKARA – Turkish Daily News

Turkey finally ratifies the Kyoto Protocol, but the decision is likely to be a political disguised as real environmental concerns. Instead of developing sound strategies to help alleviate climate change, gaining political leverage in world affairs seem to dominate the country's position toward Kyoto.

The government's decision to join the Kyoto Protocol three years after the agreement came into force seems like a diplomatic move rather than a sincere commitment to fully implement the international criteria to limit global warming, a Turkish environmentalist said yesterday.

"Turkey's move is a political one. It is a way of saying ‘I am in the club,'” Yunus Arıkan, a climate change senior project manager for the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), told the Turkish Daily News yesterday.

Arıkan referred to Turkey's wish to grab a seat at the 14th Conference of Participants this December and to have a say in the post-Kyoto environmental regime. The Kyoto Protocol was open for signatures in 1998, and entered into force in 2005 with the accession of Russia. Kyoto was signed by 176 countries and 37 among them are obliged to cut their greenhouse emission levels between 2008-12. “Governments around the world are trying to shape the next term by holding international meetings, and work will be concluded in 2009,” Arıkan said.

Politics dominate environmental policy

Foreign Ministry officials said another major point was to strengthen Turkey's bid for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. Environmental issues are high on the Council's, thus Kyoto is of major importance to Turkey, officials told the TDN.

Turkey is also obliged to ratify the protocol to join the European Union. “The EU has even stricter environmental protection policy. Turkey must adapt to it sooner or later,” said Arıkan.
“State institutions have no strategy to implement protocols aims,” Greenpeace Mediterranean Director Uygar Özesmi said. “Even the United States, which did not ratify the protocol, set standards similar to the Kyoto Protocol on environmental protection. Turkey needs a top-level decision and must lay out and announce publicly its aims and determine what changes will be made in which sector, until 2010, 2020 and 2050,” he said.

A misstep turned into an advantage

Özesmi noted that, contrary to common belief, signing the Kyoto Protocol does not put an additional burden on Turkey until 2012. “The acceleration of the ratification process is a positive development. Turkey was late in participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol,” he said. Turkey missed the possibility of becoming a “party” to the protocol, so will instead “accede” to it if Parliament chooses to ratify it.
Turkey's long-overdue move can also be interpreted from a positive point of view by those more concerned with the agreement's possible burdens on industry. Turkey was not a party to the convention adopted in 1992 when the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, so it is not currently included in the agreement's Annex-B, which includes 39 countries that are obliged to reduce their greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels between 2008-12.

“Turkey was mistakenly included in the beginning among both developed and responsible countries,” said Arıkan. Turkey thus had to share the responsibility for providing developing countries with new and additional financial resources, transferring technology to them, and even meeting the agreed full costs incurred by developing country parties. The Foreign Ministry has suggested that Turkey's inclusion in both annexes was the result of its membership to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Turkey disputed its cumbersome position, and finally was deleted from Annex II by an amendment that entered into force June 28, 2002, following a decision adopted at the seventh Conference of Parties that took place the previous year. After the decision, Turkey ratified the U.N. convention in 2004.

It is entirely up to the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until 2012, noted Arıkan. Nevertheless, Turkey will sooner or later have to begin serious thinking to curb its greenhouse emissions. “It will certainly be asked to bear a burden in the next arrangements,” Arıkan warned.

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