ABSTRACT
Turkey, during the past two decades, has evolved as a country displaying rapid socio-economic progress and development. This is evidenced in the Human Development Index (HDI), in which Turkey ranked 90 out of 187 countries in 2013. The international media since the mid-2000s has thus viewed Turkey as the China of Europe. This chapter argues Turkey's laggard status is a consequence of little or no politicisation and a lack of climate change securitisation. It is based on the screening and analysis of forty-five core publications of relevant climate change actors in civil society, scientific and international organisations and ninety parliamentary debates on climate change and global warming that have been analysed according to our framework. Environmental consciousness increased in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s, as becomes evident in the sixth Five Year Development Plan of 1987-1992. The opening of EU accession negotiations contributed to the momentum that Turkish climate policymaking had gained after the COP-7.
