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Governance of Climate Responsive Cities pp 21–42Cite as

Barriers to Implementing Local Climate Action Plans in Turkey: Searching for a Potential Way Out

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Abstract

Although decision-makers involved in urban development have started to recognize the severity of the impact of urban built environments on climate, a sufficient level of action has yet to be achieved particularly at the local level in many countries. Turkey, as a developing country, has been putting efforts in producing national-level action plans for the last two decades. Although these attempts are fundamental for achieving targets in the process of combating the climate crisis, the local climate action planning takes place independent from the national efforts yet with a commitment to international agreements. These voluntary individual institutional attempts, in turn, result in struggles for local authorities. Taking this as a point of departure, this chapter focuses on the experienced barriers and factors of failure in the implementation of local plans through a participatory inquiry conducted with 13 municipalities in Turkey. Challenges are explored through a set of group interviews and participatory workshops with representatives from the municipalities. The findings reveal that shared challenges are related to decisions, regulations, institutional and financial capacity, and governance. The shared significant potential way out of the deadlock is the activation of a cross-levelled interaction between national and local governance mechanism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Zero Waste Action executed by the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey and implemented by the MoEU in 2017, aims at reducing environmental risks, costs and increasing efficiency by preventing waste, as well as ensuring that employees have a ‘sensitive consumer’ feeling as they contribute to the development of environmental protection awareness within public institutions. To do that, the MoEU adopted a Zero Waste Management Action Plan for 2018–2023.

  2. 2.

    Turkey is divided into 81 provinces. Each province is divided into a number of different districts. A province involves urban areas as well as natural and agricultural lands.

  3. 3.

    Municipal council which consists of representatives from political parties is the highest level decision-making body within a municipality. It is led by the mayor.

  4. 4.

    City council refers to a democratic structure composed of representatives from central authority, local authority, professional chambers, NGOs and civil society. It functions as an advisory body that supports sustainable development of the city.

  5. 5.

    Mukhtars are the elected heads of neighbourhoods.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted as a part of Mercator-IPC Fellowship Program of Istanbul Policy Center (IPC)–Sabancı University. We would like to thank the IPC staff for their support and encouragement, and the Center for providing a stimulating intellectual milieu. Additionally, we also would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ayda Eraydın and Prof. Dr. İlhan Tekeli for their valuable review and comments which have significantly helped the chapter improve, and Oktay Şekercisoy and Prof. Dr. Demirkan Çöker for their review and proof-reading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), Ankara, Turkey

    Ender Peker

  2. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Anlı Ataöv

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  1. Ender Peker
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  2. Anlı Ataöv
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Correspondence to Ender Peker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. British Institute at Ankara, Ankara, Turkey

    Ender Peker

  2. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Anlı Ataöv

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Peker, E., Ataöv, A. (2021). Barriers to Implementing Local Climate Action Plans in Turkey: Searching for a Potential Way Out. In: Peker, E., Ataöv, A. (eds) Governance of Climate Responsive Cities. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73399-5_3

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