The price of the pledge
On first glance, it could be a tall order for Turkey to fulfill its Paris Agreement pledge, which targets a reduction in the nation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 21 percent below business-as-usual levels by 2030. Fossil fuels comprise nearly all of Turkey’s energy mix, and low-carbon options have not yet gained traction. Wind and solar accounts for about 5 percent of energy generation and nuclear power plants are only in the planning stages. That means meeting Turkey’s Paris commitment will require a dramatic shift to low-carbon energy sources, but how much of a toll might such a transition take on the nation’s economy? To address this question systematically, a team of researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change developed a computational general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Turkish economy, TR-EDGE. Unlike similar CGE models, TR-EDGE includes a detailed representation of the energy-intensive electricity sector. The team’s...