Turkey failing to adopt international air quality standard values, groups say

Turkey is failing to adopt the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) air quality standard values, according to Turkish environmental groups.

Around 45,000 premature deaths per year could have been prevented in Turkey, even if old WHO guidelines were followed, said non-governmental organisations and institutions that came together under the umbrella of the Cooperation for Environment, Climate and Health Project (ÇİSİP) and the Right to Clean Air Platform.

The groups called on the Turkish government to take the necessary measures to introduce the international values in order to prevent deaths from air pollution, the Diken news website reported on Tuesday.

Air pollution is considered to be the world's largest environmental health threat, accounting for seven million deaths around the world every year.

Turkey is ranked 46th among 117 countries worldwide for air pollution, unchanged from 2020, according to the 2021 World Air Quality Report by Switzerland-based IQAir. Turkey’s eastern city of Igdır ranked as the most polluted in Europe and the northwestern industrial city of Düzce ranked fifth, according to the report that collated data on air quality from 6,475 cities around the world. It was published last week.

The air pollution values targeted in new Turkish regulations, prepared in 2021 within the framework of harmonisation with the European Union acquis and yet to enter force, are almost six times higher than the new limit values determined by WHO, the groups said.

The number of people who died from air pollution in Turkey between 2017 and 2019 was almost seven times the number of people who died in traffic accidents, according to a study published by the Right to Clean Air Platform in 2020, the groups said.

Homes and businesses in many Turkish cities burn coal, including the cheap and highly polluting lignite, to produce energy for heating and other purposes. Coal supplies more than a third of the energy needs of Turkey’s 85 million population and a third of its greenhouse gases.

In October, the Turkish parliament ratified the international Paris Agreement on climate change, becoming the final member of the G20 group of industrialised nations to do so. The government asked parliament to legislate the deal after the country suffered natural disasters including flash floods and fires that underscored its unpreparedness for climate change.