Turkey signed the Paris Agreement, which called for limiting global warming to less than 2°C, but has not ratified it.
Turkey will ratify the Paris Agreement to combat climate change next month, its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday (September 21) at the United Nations. The Paris Agreement, signed at COP21 in 2015, required limiting global warming to less than 2°C above the pre-industrial level and ideally 1.5°C.
“We intend to present the Paris Climate Agreement to Parliament for ratification next month (…) before the UN climate change conference” which will take place in Glasgow (Scotland) in November, said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the podium of the UN General Assembly in New York (United States).
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recalled that his country had signed the Paris Agreement, but had not yet ratified it “because of the injustices connected with the distribution of obligations and the sharing of burdens”, in terms of reducing polluting emissions. Turkey considers that efforts should be differentiated between industrialized countries, which category it belongs to.
The country was severely affected, like many others in the Mediterranean basin, last summer by forest fires and then flash floods that claimed a hundred victims and caused significant damage to nature. Turkey is also hit by a persistent drought.
