In 2015, Turkey submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) before the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP 21), expressing its intention to decrease emissions level at a rate of 21% from business as usual. This emissions reduction target is important as it is the first one for Turkey. However, Turkey faces unemployment problems and needs to sustain its growth. In this study, an Environmentally Extended Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), based on 2012 Input-Output data, was created, emissions reduction potentials of the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) together with the INDC were calculated, and alternative policies to reduce emissions to the target level and to boost the economy were proposed separately. The study finds that both the preparation and implementation of the previous national documents are problematic, and that Turkey was not meticulous about implementation of the climate mitigation policies in the previous national documents. The study also finds that reaching the emissions target with the INDC policies seems impossible and more conceivable policies are needed, and recommends that the INDC target and document itself should be revised substantially.

The trade-off between desirable public health outcomes and undesirable economic outcomes of anti-pandemic measures forces policy makers everywhere to seek the right combination of measures to balance the public health concerns against employment and income considerations. This article describes a novel input–output approach to assessing economywide costs of shutting down tourism and related sectors to curb the spread of COVID-19. Our framework allows for a decomposition of the total effects of shutdowns into sectoral output losses resulting from (i) suspension of the delivery of inputs to other sectors, (ii) termination of the demand for inputs produced by these sectors, and (iii) the interruption of payments to the owners of factors of production employed in the sectors ordered to shut down. We illustrate the use of this methodological framework to measure and decompose the effects of recent shutdown orders issued in Turkey, a country of major tourism activity.

Turkey's CO2 emissions have been steadily increasing since the 1990s. Determining influences of socioeconomic factors behind this increase can help identify which sectors and what types of policies should be prioritized to go into action. This paper identifies the main contributors to CO2 emissions change within five-year intervals during 1990-2015 by adopting the Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) method. The results show that CO2 emissions increase was driven by per capita expenditure and population factors, while emission coefficient factor had a reducing effect on emissions. As the production side factors fell pretty behind the consumption side factors, net emissions were positive and the actual determiner in CO2 emissions was found as consumption. The most contributing sectors were Electricity, Land Transportation and Mineral. Speeding up renewable energy investments and continuing energy efficiency measures, placing a carbon tax on electricity and oil consumption, promoting public transport and use of clean fuels and vehicles, slowing down construction and raising consumer awareness to change their consumption behavior, particularly to reduce demand for high emitting products and services should be the top priority policies.