Paris Agreement and the new Sustainable Development Goals are two closely linked agreements setting long-term targets shaping global environmental protection and climate change policy under the UN. In line with scientific findings of the UN, the implementation of Paris Agreement is, however, not achievable with existing national policies submitted by Parties, including Turkey. According to the European Environment Agency, the EU is also not on track to meet 2030 targets and beyond whilst the Union meets 2020 goals in general. Therefore, the EU began to take additional measures in line with Paris Agreement and Energy Union. In this regard, the EU proposed a package of measures to move towards a low-carbon economy by 2050 in sectors of the economy as waste, buildings, agriculture, transport and land-use and forestry, which are not covered by the EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Turkey’s Climate Change Action Plan (2011-2023) is defined as the main national document to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Action Plan includes targets for sectors covered by the EU ETS such as energy-intensive and industry as well as other sectors outside the system. The Regulation Concerning Monitoring of Greenhouse Gas Emissions issued by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation is also based on the EU ETS sectors. On the one hand, the Regulation’s objective is to align with the EU ETS and includes the MRV system (measuring, reporting and verification) of emissions of related sectors. On the other hand, the Regulation is only based on MRV system rather than limiting emissions in sectors. In Turkey, emissions as CO2 equivalent increased by 125 percent in 2014 compared to the emissions in 1990, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (No: 21582). This is also mentioned as one of the main remarks of Turkey Progress Report prepared by the European Commission.

IKV’s new publication entitled “Transition Towards a Low-Carbon Economy-Main Sectors” (in Turkish) prepared by IKV Researcher İlge Kıvılcım gives a general view of global trends in climate change policy, current emissions and sectoral transition in line with low-carbon economy in the EU and Turkey.

As IKV, we wish this publication gives young experts inspiration in their research and contributes to raise awareness of the most important current global issues, climate change.