Turkish First Lady Emine Erdoğan calls for abandoning throwaway culture — Anadolu Agency

In Türkiye, First Lady Emine Erdoğan called for a shift from a culture of disposable goods to sustainable consumption during the International Energy Agency’s High-Level Dialogue on Energy Transition at UN headquarters. Anadolu Agency reported this, citing her speech.

Consumption and energy demand

Erdoğan said that record temperatures, heatwaves, wildfires, floods and severe storms are becoming increasingly common. She linked this to growing energy demand driven by consumption, as well as increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

According to her, the energy transition should not be limited to the issue of producing more clean energy. In her view, it is first necessary to determine why there is a need to produce more energy and to eliminate the root causes of waste generation.

As an example, she cited food waste: every year, food equivalent to 5.8 trillion plates is discarded worldwide. Along with it, Erdoğan said, the energy spent on the production, packaging, preparation, storage and distribution of food is lost.

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Türkiye’s goals

Emine Erdoğan stressed that production processes can be organized to prevent waste from arising and to return discarded materials to circulation as raw materials. She also mentioned Türkiye’s Zero Waste project, launched in 2017, calling it a benchmark for energy and resource security.

According to her, Türkiye ranks fifth in Europe and 11th globally in installed renewable energy capacity. By 2035, the country plans to increase its installed solar and wind generation capacity to 120,000 megawatts.

Erdoğan added that Ankara seeks to promote the zero-waste approach in the action agenda of the UN COP31 climate conference, which Türkiye will host in November. Her speech was followed by a roundtable meeting attended by Turkish government ministers and other officials.