Is Production or Consumption the Determiner? Sources of Turkey’s CO2 Emissions between 1990-2015 and Policy Implications

Turkey’s CO2 emissions have been steadily increasing since 1990. Determining influences of socioeconomic factors behind this increase can help identify which the sectors and what types of policies should be prioritized to go into action. This paper identifies the main contributors to CO2 emissions change within five-year intervals during 1990-2015 by adopting Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) method. The results show that CO2 emissions increase was driven by per capita expenditure and population factors, while emission coefficient factor had a reducing effect on emissions. As the production side factors fell pretty behind the consumption side factors, net emissions was positive and the actual determiner in CO2 emissions was found as consumption. The most contributing sectors were Electricity, Land Transportation and Mineral. Speeding up renewable energy investments and continuing energy efficiency measures, placing a carbon tax on electricity and oil consumption, promoting public transport and use of clean fuels and vehicles, slowing down construction and raising consumer awareness to change their consumption behavior, particularly to reduce demand for high emitting products and services should be the top priority policies.