By Gavin Maguire
LITTLETON, Colorado (Reuters) -Turkey surpassed Germany as Europe’s top polluter from fossil fuel power production for the first time in 2024, marking an important shift in Europe’s main polluting hubs away from traditional industrial centres to its fringes.
And Turkey’s ascendance in polluting heft extends beyond power, as the country’s production of energy-intensive industrial products including steel and chemicals has expanded in recent years just as output of those same goods shrank in Germany.
This divergence in smokestack trends highlights an ongoing change in the location of Europe’s high-polluting sectors out of areas with emissions caps and strained power grids to regions with laxer pollution standards and fast-growing energy supplies.
For pollution trackers, this development means that emissions monitoring must extend beyond Europe’s established industrial heartland to emerging economies where policy priorities that may conflict with climate reduction goals.
EMISSIONS TOLL
Turkey’s power sector discharged 154.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel-based power generation in 2024, according to data from energy think tank Ember.
That total was only slightly above Germany’s 154.4 million tons of CO2, but marks the first time in decades that Germany’s power sector was not Europe’s largest emitter.
The key driver behind Turkey’s swell in power pollution is the country’s reliance on coal for a majority of its power and electricity production.
Coal-fired power plants generated around 35% of Turkey’s electricity in 2024, which is the second-highest coal share among major European economies behind Poland.
What’s more, 2024 marked the third straight year of coal-fired power growth in Turkey, and the highest coal-fired output level on record in the country.
That coal use trend contrasts with that seen in Germany, Poland and other traditional coal consumers where use has steadily declined this decade as part of efforts to transition energy systems away from fossil fuels.
Indeed, Turkey’s expansion in the use of coal for power while all other major European economies have reduced coal use resulted in Turkey being the only major economy to register growth in fossil fuel power emissions in 2024.
Turkey’s emissions from fossil fuel power output increased by 7.5%, or by roughly 11 million tons of CO2, in 2024 from 2023, according to Ember.
That compares to declines in fossil fuel power emissions of 9% in Germany, 12% in Italy and 13% in the United Kingdom in 2024.
STRUCTURAL SHIFTS
The emissions trends in the power sector are a sign of broader industrial changes underway across Europe.
Europe’s former industrial powerhouse, Germany, has drastically reduced output of key products such as steel, fertilizers and chemicals due to high power costs and natural gas shortages since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Over the same period, output of some of those same industrial ingredients has climbed in Turkey, where a large population and policy support for job-generating sectors has helped spur growth across a slew of industries.
A sharp difference in average electricity and power costs between the two countries has also played a role in driving these industrial shifts.
Over the first half of 2024, Turkey’s household electricity prices averaged less than 10 cents (euros) per kilowatt hour (KWh), compared to nearly 40 cents/KWh in Germany, according to Eurostat.
Different economic growth rates have also been key.
Since 2020, Turkey’s annual gross domestic product growth has averaged 5.3%, compared to less than 1% in Germany, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Between now and the end of the decade, Turkey’s annual GDP growth is expected to be around 3.4%, compared to only 1% in Germany.
These growth projections should support a continuation of the recent trends in industrial reallocations out of Germany and into Turkey for the next several years.
However, to sustain a competitive advantage, Turkey’s power costs must remain far lower than those across northern Europe, where industries continue to grapple with sharply lower volumes of natural gas compared to just a few years ago.
That suggests Turkey’s power producers will remain heavily reliant on coal for most of their power needs, which should help to keep overall energy costs lower than elsewhere in the region even if it leads to a swell in emissions.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a market analyst for Reuters.
(Reporting By Gavin Maguire; Editing by Jamie Freed)
