Turkey needs EUR 9.6 billion annually to achieve climate goals

Turkey will need around EUR 9.6 billion of investments annually to raise the capacity of solar, wind, and storage technologies and reduce fossil fuel consumption to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The report Decarbonization Pathway for Turkey: Sectoral Cost-Benefit Analysis, published in November 2022 by Sabancı University Istanbul Policy Center (IPC), was presented at COP 27 in Egypt. The study focuses on the benefit-cost analysis of Electricity, Transportation, Buildings, Industry, and other productive sectors.

The latest IPC study showed that reducing fossil fuel consumption with investments of EUR 9.6 billion a year for renewables could help Turkey to meet its climate change commitments.

The costs of decarbonization

The energy, transportation, buildings, industry, and other productive sectors will require about USD 10 billion annually until 2030 for the country to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. That amounts to a total of EUR 97.5 billion, said in the IPC report. Also, Turkey can get EUR 40 billion for the reduction in health costs in the transition to net zero.

The investment could require fewer amounts if the country reduces fossil fuel use, IPC noted.

With the investments in decarbonization, Turkey can add a total of 28 GW of additional solar energy and 23 GW of wind energy to its total capacity, according to the IPC. The investments would integrate 5.67 GW of storage capacities into the grid.

The transformation of the energy sector needs an investment of EUR 35 billion by 2030. It would decrease to EUR 28 billion with a fall in coal and natural gas consumption estimates analysis.

The cost for the transportation sector transition to railways and electric vehicles is EUR 12 billion. The study shows it could drop to EUR 1.9 billion with savings from reduced oil consumption.

The largest share of investment represents the buildings sector, which includes energy-efficient buildings. The cost of the transformation of this sector amounts to nearly EUR 96.5 billion, but it can decrease by EUR 39.5 billion, again with the reduction in fossil fuel consumption.

The cost of the transformation required for industry and other productive sectors is EUR 20.2 billion.

The report also showed that under the net zero scenario, Turkey will save 1.35 billion tons of CO2 emissions if the country’s total emissions would fall 32% below 2018 levels in 2030.

Climate policies and commitment

Turkey was among the first signatories of the Paris Agreement, but the government only ratified it last year. Also, the country committed to net zero emissions by 2053.

The country viewed its categorization of a developed country in the annex to the agreement as inaccurate. Such categorization required the country to meet specific emissions reduction targets, but with no benefit from the financial support provided for developing countries, reports AA energy.

According to the latest report on the country`s road to decarbonization, geographic, socioeconomic, and climatic conditions makes Turkey highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Aside from ratifying the Paris Agreement and committing to 2053 target, Turkey is pushing forward climate policies, as recently renamed Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, and updates of the National Climate Change Action Plan.