پتانسیل انتشار تجارت داوطلبانه ی ترکیه

Climate change is likely to cause serious market failures, and carbon trading as a market instrument can help correct its negative impacts. The global carbon markets established to combat climate change include regulatory and voluntary markets. Turkey cannot utilise regulatory carbon markets under the Kyoto Protocol. As a result of her unique position in the UNFCCC, some offsetting projects in Turkey have benefitted only voluntary emission trading for the reduction of GHG emissions. Due to on-going climate change negotiation under the UNFCCC, it seems that Turkey will not use the current regulatory carbon markets. Thus, Turkey should promote the use of and participation in voluntary carbon markets. In this article, emission reduction potential via energy efficiency, renewable energy and solid waste management, and corresponding offsetting of credits with their estimated prices is investigated for the period between 2013 and 2020. The emission reduction potential for energy efficiency, renewable energy and solid waste management projects are estimated at 403, 312 and 356 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions respectively, totalling 1,071 million tons of CO2 equivalent. The total revenue of the carbon certificates are estimated in the range of 19,775–33,386 million US Dollars for the same period.

Carbon trading, which is a market-based instrument aimed at mitigating climate change through trading greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, has been established for the purpose of preventing market failure due to climate change (Perdan and Azapagic, 2011). The 'carbon market' refers to the buying and selling of GHG emissions reduction amounts and allowances credits (Bayon et al., 2009). This is because emission reductions should take place in the lowest level for minimising the overall cost of combating climate change. Emission trading enables actors to find minimum cost reductions via carbon markets (Perdan and Azapagic, 2011). In addition to ensuring the most cost-effective emission reduction, carbon markets provide the facility to transition to low carbon economies and technologies, to develop innovative new solutions to encourage emissions reduction (Bayon et al., 2009). In these markets, there is a punishment and reward system which ensures parties reduce emissions through the adoption of low carbon technologies, or pay more if they remain using more carbon-intense systems (Bayon et al., 2009). Further, emission trading and carbon markets can contribute to sustainable development outcomes (Benessaiah, 2012), such as the eradication of poverty, job creation, and the mobilisation of finance. The volume and value of global carbon markets has increased to 10,289 million tons of CO2 eqv., and 176,027 million US Dollars respectively in 2011 (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton, 2012). The regulated carbon markets accounted for more than 99% of the total (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton, 2012). Global carbon markets can be divided into two groups: regulatory and voluntary markets (Bayon et al., 2009). Regulatory markets operate under emission caps and authority, but voluntary markets are outside of any legally binding emission reduction and compliance framework (Bayon et al., 2009). Instead, voluntary markets are driven by companies and individuals who take responsibility for off-setting their own emissions (Peters-Stanley et al., 2011). Offsetting refers to issued carbon credits are gained by projects through reducing emissions via low carbon technologies, carbon sequestration, and forestation (Mathews, 2008). Offset credits are called Verified (or Voluntary) Emission Reductions (VERs) (Bayon et al., 2009). Generally, in these markets, there are two types of buyers: consumers and middlemen (Bayon et al., 2009). The demand side (buyer) of VER certificate generally uses this certificate for the purpose of social and corporate responsibility, public relations/branding, investment, climate-influenced business model, competition and product sales (Bayon et al., 2009 and Hamilton et al., 2009). The VER buyers purchase credits for offsetting emission related to its actions, event or products, the latter trades these credits (Bayon et al., 2009). For instance, thousands of private companies use the wording ‘carbon neutral’ in their products, events and activities by buying carbon credits to offset their associated emissions (Bayon et al., 2009). The majority of buyers and sellers of voluntary carbon markets trade through Over-the-Counter (OTC) transactions, where buying and selling is conducted directly, rather than through a formal trading platform (Bayon et al., 2009 and Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). Due to buyers and sellers trading directly, it is often difficult to know the price of VER in the OTC (Bayon et al., 2009). Besides OTC, between 2004 and 2010, some of the voluntary offset credits were traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), which is based on exchanges completed in 2010 (Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). There are some pros and cons to voluntary carbon markets. The advantages of these markets are lower transaction costs, less a bureaucratic procedure, creativity and innovation for projects – particularly small sized ones – and the flexibility to enable the support specific types of projects (Bayon et al., 2009 and Benessaiah, 2012). In voluntary carbon markets, there is no need for start-up capital to prepare the offsetting project, and this is a significant advantage over the regulated carbon market (Bayon et al., 2009). The disadvantages of these markets are fragmentation, insufficient information due to lack of regulation and monitoring mechanisms, and non-uniform certification, verification and registration procedures (Bayon et al., 2009). These have led to the development of different standards for validation of VER credits in the markets (Bayon et al., 2009). Having weighed up these advantages and disadvantages, many market players and stakeholders think that as a fast evolving market, the voluntary carbon has important advantages over the regulated carbon markets. For example, they are a fast way to fight climate change, are a key tool for awareness-raising, and they prefer not to deal with bureaucracy (Bayon et al., 2009). Importantly, however, it should be understood that both markets are not alternatives to each other (Bayon et al., 2009). Table 1 shows global carbon markets' volume and value between 2008 and 2012. The rate growth of carbon markets declined due to the global economic crises and uncertainty in the post-Kyoto agreement period (Benessaiah, 2012). Due to the worldwide recession starting in the second half of 2008, industrial production, energy demand and demand for carbon credits have fallen (Nazifi, 2013 and Perdan and Azapagic, 2011). This crisis negatively affected the demand and supply sides of the carbon market (Perdan and Azapagic, 2011). Mobilisation of financial resources to developing countries through offsetting projects decreased during this period, so many project developers cancelled these projects (Kossoy and Ambrosi, 2010). In particular, the primary CDM markets were negatively affected, and as a result many carbon contracts were cancelled (Nazifi, 2013). Although the total volume and value of global carbon markets increased between 2008 and 2009, and these markets showed some resilience to global crisis, this cannot be assumed to have mitigated the net effect of this crisis Even though the exact volume and value of size of the global voluntary carbon market is difficult to know (Bayon et al., 2009), according to the responses to surveys from market players in the voluntary carbon markets, global voluntary carbon markets are smaller than 1 per-cent of the total global carbon markets (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton, 2012). The volume and value of voluntary carbon markets reached their maximum in 2008. After the global financial crisis, volume, value and VER prices reduced in 2009, with the value and volume of voluntary carbon markets fluctuating between 2009 and 2012. In 2012, volume and value were 100 million tons of CO2 eqv. and 524 $ millionOne of the major sources of off-setting credits, in fact the 7th largest globally, is Turkey (Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). In Turkey, there has been considerable progress on the climate change issue during the past decade. Turkey is an Annex-I country that is party to the UNFCCC, and did not receive any legally binding emission targets in the Kyoto Protocol, so its name is not listed in Annex B of the Protocol. For these reasons, as an Annex I country, but not committing to any emission targets, Turkey could not use any of the flexible mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol (Ari, 2010). When any country wants to participate in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), it must be a non-Annex I country in order to be a host country. Besides CDM, as another flexibility mechanism International Emission Trading is required to be in Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol to minimise commitments for the emission reduction cost, but being an Annex B country in the Kyoto Protocol requires it to reduce GHG emission according to a base year of 1990 (Ari, 2010). As an emerging economy, Turkey's population, energy consumption and economic growth are increasing so, it is difficult for Turkey to adopt any legally binding commitments to reduce its emissions according to any base year such as 1990. Given that it is both an emerging economy and an Annex-I country of the UNFCCC, Turkey's special circumstances render Turkey's position different from that of other Annex I countries, as has been recognised in 2001, 2010 and 2011 COP decisions. As a result, Turkey has been trying to use alternative ways to benefit from carbon markets. For example, Turkey's government has tried to implement a national tracking and registering scheme for voluntary offset projects, and establish domestic emissions trading scheme since 2011 (Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). In addition, Turkey wants to transfer its knowledge of voluntary emission trading to domestic emission trading schemes through linking current VCM projects with any future market-based mechanisms (Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). In this study, Turkey's voluntary emission trading potential is investigated through an estimation of its emission reduction initiatives in three sectors: energy efficiency, renewable energy and municipal waste management. The following section will provide an overview of Turkey's basic economic and environmental indicators. In Section 3, Turkey's GHG emission reduction potential is estimated for the period between 2013 and 2020, and VER prices are estimated for the period from 2013 to 2020, in order to present the projected value of voluntary emission trading of these projects.

Emission trading is an important tool for combating climate change via emission mitigation and correcting market failure as a result of the external cost of climate change. The global carbon markets have continued to grow since the 2000s, reaching up to USD 176 billion in 2011 (Liese et al., 2012). Voluntary carbon markets increased to USD 576 million in 2011 (Peters-Stanley and Hamilton, 2012). The first Kyoto commitment period (2008–2012) ended in December 2012 without consensus for the future architecture of climate regime (Benessaiah, 2012). It is difficult to expect a uniform international carbon markets (Lee, Lazarus, Smith, Todd, and Weitz, 2013), so voluntary carbon markets will be larger by 2020 than they are now (Bayon et al., 2009). Due to regulatory carbon markets being too slow, voluntary carbon markets can continue to help to reduce GHG emissions through increasing markets' transactions (Bayon et al., 2009). Whatever the size of regulatory markets, the buyer of VER will exist because of the outlet features of voluntary carbon markets (Bayon et al., 2009). Thus, the voluntary carbon markets continue to help for innovation, inspiration, and education (Bayon et al., 2009). Turkey tries to contribute to the mitigation of global climate change within its respective capability. Access to financial mechanisms is important for emerging economies such as Turkey. As a result, Turkey's energy consumption and emissions will continue to increase, but Turkey cannot use financial and flexible mechanisms like other emerging economies. This is because other emerging economies are not listed in Annex I of the UNFCCC in other words they are not primarily responsible for the mitigation of emissions. Thus, the unfair position of Turkey as an Annex-I country in the UNFCCC is very big obstacle preventing Turkey from benefiting from the Kyoto Protocol Flexibility Mechanisms as other non-Annex I countries have done. Therefore, Turkey could only use voluntary emission trading as a financial tool. Accordingly, Turkey is the 7th largest source of VER credits, and is a net exporter this credits (Liese et al., 2012 and Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). Within this context, Turkey will continue to benefit from voluntary emission trading. Turkey shows its willingness to develop a sustainable and low-carbon infrastructure when Turkey utilises carbon markets fairly (Liese et al., 2012). Turkey also investigates other alternatives in order to create finance for emission mitigation. These measures include carbon taxation, and domestic cap-and-trade systems (Liese et al., 2012). Turkey wants to use its experience in the domestic emission trading systems when current voluntary carbon projects and their VER credits can be linked with the future market-based mechanisms (Peters-Stanley and Yin, 2013). According to the results of this study, Turkey has a significant emission mitigation potential of 1,071 million tons in renewable energy, energy efficiency and solid waste management areas between 2013 and 2020. These amounts could be certificated to value the emission mitigation actions within a market instruments. The total revenue of the voluntary emission trading will be between 19,775 and 33,386 million US Dollars between 2013 and 2020. Using these revenues as a financial support to develop offsetting projects in the three sectors discussed above – emission reduction potential through energy efficiency, renewable energy and solid waste management – will ensure Turkey's cost effective emission reduction and significantly enhance this key emerging economy's contribution to the global struggle to combat climate change in sustainable ways that do not compromise economic development. To conclude, Turkey has a very considerable emission reduction potential through carbon trading in the voluntary markets. This can give a sign to policy makers in Turkey to give further considerations to the regulatory emission trading schemes in Turkey, in order to be ready for the future climate regime and its flexibility mechanisms.