Climate conference agreement likely to protect Turkey’s special position

Draft agreements that came out of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action on Dec. 16 included a provision on the special conditions Turkey appended to its portion of the Kyoto Protocol and expects to keep with any new climate document. A paragraph in the draft agreement says that the conference of the parties recalls “the special national circumstances of parties undergoing the process of transition to a market economy.”

This is the “special circumstances” recognized by decisions of the 2001 COP 7 conference in Marrakech, where Turkey’s name was deleted from Annex II of the convention. That meant that an unjust situation in which Turkey was included in the category as a developed country was corrected. But Turkey remained in Annex I of the convention because it was included in that category as a member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Hasan Sarıkaya

“Turkey is different than other Annex I countries. All indicators, such as per capita income, per capita energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, show that Turkey is not a developed country. And this special situation was recognized in Marrakech,” Ambassador Mithat Rende from the Turkish Foreign Ministry told Today’s Zaman.

“What the Turkish delegation has been doing here is to guarantee that this special circumstance will be incorporated in documents to be created in Copenhagen,” he added.

Environment Ministry Undersecretary Hasan Sarıkaya, head of the Turkish delegation at the talks, said the Turkish team has been working tirelessly at the global climate talks to inform decision makers about Turkey’s sui generis case.

Rende and Sarıkaya have successfully convinced Danish officials, who are set to prepare a conclusive text out of the conference, and obtained a reaffirmation of Turkey’s special circumstances in the draft.

“This is an achievement because we won recognition that Turkey is not in the same basket as other Annex I countries,” Sarıkaya told Today’s Zaman.

Per capita annual emissions in Turkey are 4.5 tons, compared to 23.5 tons in the United States and 11 tons in Denmark. But emissions have increased rapidly, from 170 million tons in 1990 to 372 million tons in 2007 as the annual per capita income rose from $3,000 in 1990 to $10,000 in 2007.

A demonstrator calls for a sustainable food policy outside the venue of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. President Gül in Copenhagen to represent Turkey at climate conference President Abdullah Gül left for Denmark on Thursday to attend a United Nations conference on climate change. The president is set to take part in the summit for heads of state at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15). He is accompanied by Environment Minister Veysel Eroğlu. Gül’s visit to Copenhagen ends today. He is expected to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and attend a dinner to be hosted by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Turkey was represented by Lütfü Akçalı, Hasan Sarıkaya, Sedat Kadıoğlu and Mustafa Şahin from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Haluk Özdalga, chairman of Parliament’s Environmental Commission, at the previous sessions of the conference. İstanbul Today’s Zaman with wires

Turkey refrains from binding commitments

But other issues are still not clear, including the question of whether Turkey is going to be able to benefit from the financial and technical mechanisms that are under consideration for developing countries.

Sarıkaya said these will be details to be discussed at upcoming conferences after Copenhagen.

And Turkey has refrained from announcing its emission-reduction targets at the conference, angering Turkish environmental organizations. Sarıkaya said Turkey cannot risk its economic development but will control its emissions by adopting no-lose targets that will not be legally binding.

“There are so many issues in play regarding other countries as well. The important thing here is to get a mutually acceptable agreement by all nations to be able to go forward,” he said.

The success of the Copenhagen conference is seen as dependent in part on the commitments of the US administration, as less-developed nations have threatened to walk out unless rich countries such as America agree to cut their emissions. But the US cannot commit to legally binding emission targets without Congressional approval.

Moreover, the last round of UN talks in Barcelona ended in a deadlock after countries failed to agree on a framework to share the burden of fighting climate change.

UN scientists say rich countries must cut carbon emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent the Earth’s temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average temperature before the industrial era began 150 years ago.

Expectations vs. realities

It was China that led developing nations in opposing a plan by host country Denmark to break a deadlock at the talks as police rounded up hundreds of protesters who failed in their bid to storm the Bella Center.

Several nations criticized Denmark after it said it planned to table new drafts to try to break the deadlock on issues such as cuts in emissions by rich nations.

“This is a party-driven process, you can’t just put forward some text from the sky,” Chinese delegate Su Wei said at the talks.

African nations tried to break a deadlock on demands for climate cash for poor countries, scaling back expectations to $100 billion in annual funds by 2020 for schemes to adapt to climate change impacts and to make their economies greener.

In addition to protests outside the conference center and interruptions in transportation to the venue because of the demonstrations, the talks were also marked by the start of speeches by heads of state and government.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, among the first leaders to address the assembly, echoed the protesters’ sentiments as he said, “If the climate was a bank, a capitalist bank, they would have saved it.”