Emissions in the buildings sector in Türkiye increased from about 23 MtCO₂e in 1990 to 54 MtCO₂e in 2016, but their share of total emissions has remained stable at around 12%. Share of electricity in the sector’s power mix increased from 9% in 1990 to 32% in 2019, but at the same time, the share of fossil fuels grew from approximately 42% to about 59%. The growth was mostly driven by an increased use of fossil gas which accounted for 75% of fossil fuels in the sector’s energy mix in 2019.
All 1.5°C aligned pathways analysed here foresee an increasing role for electrification, with the share of electricity rising to 55–60% by 2030 and 84–89% by 2050. To be aligned with 1.5°C compatible pathways, Türkiye would need to decrease direct CO₂ emissions in the buildings sector to below 21 MtCO₂ by 2030 and fully decarbonise the sector by mid-2040s.
Türkiye’s National Energy Efficiency Action Plan proposes to introduce standards for newly constructed public and private buildings. Such standards would for example require that all new buildings have at a minimum an Energy Performance Certificate “B”. Another proposal in the plan would mandate new buildings to be “nearly zero energy buildings”.9 Türkiye has set several short-term goals for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, such as a 15% reduction in energy use by 2023. However, the goals refer primarily to public buildings; Türkiye has no long-term policies mandating the refurbishment of existing, privately-owned housing stock.
1 Government of Turkey. On bi̇ri̇nci̇ kalkinma plani (2019-2023) (11th Development Plan (2019-2023)). 2019.
2 Turkish Statistical Institute. Turkish Greenhouse gas inventory report 1990–2018. 2020.
3 Republic of Turkey Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. Turkey Energy Strategy 2019-2023. 2019.
12 While global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C provide useful guidance for an upper-limit of emissions trajectories for developed countries, they underestimate the feasible space for such countries to reach net zero earlier. The current generation of models tend to depend strongly on land-use sinks outside of currently developed countries and include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches. The scientific teams which provide these global pathways constantly improve the technologies represented in their models – and novel CDR technologies are now being included in new studies focused on deep mitigation scenarios meeting the Paris Agreement. A wide assessment database of these new scenarios is not yet available; thus, we rely on available scenarios which focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology. Accordingly, we do not yet consider land-sector emissions (LULUCF) and other CDR approaches which developed countries will need to implement in order to counterbalance their remaining emissions and reach net zero GHG are not considered here due to data availability.
13LULUCF projections by 2030 are based on a ten-year average of the latest available historical LULUCF emissions from Türkiye assessed by the Climate Action Tracker.