Sustainable Development and Environmental Diplomacy

Causes, impacts, and solutions of most environmental problems are transboundary and interconnected issues that require effective international cooperation and governance mechanisms. While the nature of these issues demands scientific expertise, such governance mechanisms, which constitute environmental diplomacy platforms, are also junctures of economic, social, and political factors at local, national, regional, and global levels. This project involves a series of meetings and aims to examine science-policy interface in support of international cooperation in environmental diplomacy platforms and to strengthen the role of Turkey in such platforms.

Throughout this nine-month project, the members of the Environmental Diplomacy Study Group, who are established researchers in their fields, will author an academic book in Turkish, two academic articles in English. This project supports GEF SGP priorities by enabling information, dialogue, and participation about purposes and operations of existing national and international platforms on biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, and chemicals. The major target groups of this project are researchers, higher education institutions and students, and representatives of related governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Turkey will be hosting the Barcelona Convention COP 22 and Convention on Biological Diversity COP 16 meetings. Dissemination of the outputs of this project with target groups before these meetings is critical for effective realization of project goals.

Environmental Diplomacy and Turkey Workshop

Environmental Diplomacy and Turkey virtual event took place on May 29, 2021. Leading names in environmental diplomacy themes presented research in their fields. Students, academics, and representatives from both governmental and nongovernmental organizations were present in the audience. Presentation themes included diplomacy in biodiversity, oceans, climate change, freshwater, soil and agriculture, forestry, implementation of SDGs, and society-environmental diplomacy relationship.

Ocean Diplomacy and Turkey

Ocean Diplomacy and Turkey Workshop took place on June 25, 2021, with participation of speakers from Turkish institutions as well as international names from the World Maritime University, U. of Massachusetts Boston, IUCN, and High Seas Alliance. The topics discussed were the role of diplomacy and society in conservation of mammals, property rights and BBNJ, EU fisheries policies, domestic sources of fisheries diplomacy, and science-policy interface and the role of nongovernmental actors in ocean diplomacy. The discussions will also contribute to TUDAV’s preparations for the Barcelona Convention COP 22 side event activities in December 2021.