Praying For Rain: The Climate Crisis in Turkey
During the Christmas holiday, I went back to my hometown of Istanbul, Turkey.
While the coronavirus crisis dominated every aspect of our daily lives and took up much of the national discourse, there was another crisis that people were talking about and which you couldn’t help but notice- the water crisis. During the two weeks that I was in Istanbul it barely rained and the temperatures were always unusually high.
According to the Turkish State Meteorological Service, in December 2020 Turkey in general saw a 53% reduction in rainfall compared to December 2019. In Marmara, the region that encompasses
Istanbul, rainfall in December 2020 was 47% below the normal and 28% less compared to December 2019.
The lack of rainfall had a dramatic effect on water levels in the dams and created a panic in the city as news outlets started to count down the days until Istanbul ran out of water. The day I landed in Istanbul we had 63 days’ worth of water left.
Figures from Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI) show that the dam levels in December were at the lowest they had been in a decade. The Municipal Council of Istanbul started to distribute free water-saving devices in an effort to prevent further reduction in water levels.
Temperatures were also unusually high; the State Meteorological Services indicated that while the average temperature for December had been 6.9℃ over the past years, this year it was 10.5℃. The change in temperatures was noticeable; as I was walking along the coast in Kadıköy on New Year’s Eve, I saw people sunbathing in their swimsuits, whereas I remember welcoming 2016 with a snow fight with my friends on that same coast.
On January 11 2021, NASA’s Earth Observatory published an article warning that Turkey was experiencing severe drought.
“Since July 2020, nearly all provinces in Turkey received below-average rainfall nearly every month,” said the article. The article also points out that the drought has already dramatically reduced grain harvests in some parts of Turkey.
Perhaps one of the more interesting way s people tried to deal with the water crisis was by praying for rain. The Presidency of Religious Affairs announced that on Friday December 12, every mosque in Turkey was going to participate in a prayer for rain.
Beyond prayers, however, the government policy to combat the water crisis and more broadly the climate crisis is insufficient and the road to efficient policy is paved with obstacles in the form of powerful conglomerates.
2017 figures show that Turkey is responsible for 1.16% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the world; the UK was responsible for 1.02% the same year. Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis that tracks government climate action and measures it against Paris Agreement goals, states that the Turkish government’s climate policy is “critically insufficient”.
Although Turkey has the second-highest solar energy potential in Europe, the coal industry is heavily subsidised and coal generates a third of the country’s electricity. The type of coal used mostly in Turkey is lignite, which is more polluting than other types of coal.
Moreover, projects that cause deforestation and destruction of natural habitats are mostly overseen by five companies: Cengiz Holding, Limak Holding Kolin Holding, Kalyon Holding and MNG Group. These companies usually operate in construction, cement manufacturing, infrastructure and energy projects.
These five companies made up the consortium that built the controversial Istanbul Airport and in the process cut down 13 million trees. Limak Holding is also the second most contract-winning company in the world according to World Bank data; Cengiz, Kolin, Kalyon and MNG were also among the top 10.
With such close ties between the government and these companies, it is hard and at times dangerous to persuade the government to adopt better climate policies which would cut down emissions and preserve nature. For example, the massive Gezi Park protests in 2013 erupted after environmental activists were met with police violence for protesting Kalyon Holding’s plans to redevelop the culturally significant Gezi Park into a complex with a new mosque and shopping centre.
NASA analysis shows that 2020 was tied with 2016 for the hottest year on record. As global temperatures rise, the climate crisis manifests itself in Turkey as droughts, floods and unusual weather events such as tornados and hail storms. However, the climate crisis is never isolated to a certain region.
In Australia, Brazil and the West Coast of the United States, 2020 was a year of record-breaking wildfires which destroyed natural habitats and left us more vulnerable in our fight against climate change. My experience this time in Turkey was a stark reminder that as we battle the coronavirus pandemic, we are faced with an even more threatening and permanent crisis which needs to be tackled urgently.