Talk:Greenhouse gas emissions by Turkey/Archive 4

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Some general comments

Hi. I've just taken a quick look at this article and hope you'll find a few general thoughts useful. Thanks for your hard work on this underserved topic.

1. NPOV in wording: I think it would be helpful to go through the article and see if each statement complies with "Avoid stating opinions as facts" and "Avoid stating facts as opinions". In my opinion there is a fair amount of both. E.g. "Major reasons for Turkey's greenhouse gas emissions include subsidies for coal-fired power stations, and the lack of a price on carbon pollution” is an opinion and should be explicitly attributed, whereas “In 2019 Turkey emitted 5.1 t of CO2 per person” is a fact and should not be prefaced by “According to the EU's Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research".

   Done those 2. As these are hard for me to spot would you have time to go through and either fix or tag the others? I think it unlikely I will disagree with your judgement but if I do I can always revert and discuss further here.Chidgk1 (talk) 08:33, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

   Regarding the first example, attribution needs to be more specific. "Academics say..." is usually a type of unsupported attribution, unless there is a source that explicitly says there is a consensus among academics for the claim. This example caught my attention because while carbon pricing leads to decreases in emissions, it looked really odd to read that a lack of carbon pricing is a reason for emissions. Many countries that don't have carbon pricing are among the lowest-emitting countries in the world. Who, exactly, says that major reasons for Turkey's greenhouse gas emissions include subsidies for coal-fired power stations, and the lack of a price on carbon pollution? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

   Good point - I have changed "academics" to "economists" as there is an explicit global consensus among economists but I doubt I could find a quote for a consensus among academics as a whole. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

2. NPOV on carbon pricing: It’s a bit too easy to guess that the writers of this article are in favour of carbon pricing. Carbon pricing is one approach to reducing emissions, but there are others that can be equally effective.[1] You can get coal plants to shut down indirectly by pricing emissions, but you can also do it directly by banning coal plants. An article like this should help the reader understand all significant points of view on carbon pricing in Turkey. The policy options other than carbon pricing that have been discussed should be presented in the same section as carbon pricing.

   I would love to include more on decarbonization policies other than carbon pricing, but as far as I know they have not yet been much publicly discussed specifically for Turkey. Also I have not found any academic papers discussing the disadvantages of carbon pricing for Turkey (probably because they could not get EU funding). I know carbon pricing is politically impossible in the USA, so as the Biden administration proceeds I hope academics will use the USA decarbonization attempts to write papers showing how it could apply (or not) to Turkey. Having said that I think I mentioned both nuclear power and the Chamber of Engineers saying all coal power could be shut down. Please go ahead and move anything you think is in the wrong section. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

   I have now added a legislative option to the lead as you suggested Chidgk1 (talk) 08:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

3. NPOV and completeness on subsidies: Discussion of fossil fuel subsidies tends to take a judgemental tone (e.g. “despite coal power subsidies being economically irrational”) and often doesn’t give numbers or comparisons to help the reader understand the amount of money involved. More importantly, why is phasing out subsidies politically difficult? Remember that for readers who want things to change, it’s helpful to explain the barriers to change in addition to the reasons for change.

   Re economics I have added more detail and put subsidies into context by citing as nearly 1% of GDP. Re Wikivoice "economically irrational” was paraphrasing the economist I think I named - but as far as I know this is as much a consensus among economists as human caused climate change is amongst scientists. Re quantification I have added a little more on petroleum - but for coal there is a lot of detail in Coal in Turkey and if I duplicated that it would be harder to keep up to date - should I move it here and then make the section in that article an extract from this article? Of course the subsidies may be perfectly rational politically. Re your question "why is phasing out subsidies politically difficult?" could you possibly consider my change request at Talk:Green Party (Turkey) However that may be nothing to do with it. Totally speculating: possibly the AK Party thinks cutting those subsidies would cause electricity and gas bills to rise further thus losing them votes - whereas subsidies coming from general taxation are less visible in a household budget or affect opposition voters more than their voters. But I have not found any reliable source to answer your important question specifically for Turkey "why is phasing out subsidies politically difficult?" I mean I understand why a previous government started the subsidies years ago (trying to reduce import dependancy) but as removing subsidies now would make a "profit" I don't understand why the present govt cannot redirect that money to their voter base in a very visible way - for example by "helicopter payments" to poor households. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:11, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

4. Quotes that are not about GHG emissions: Quotes such as “According to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, "Our country aims to use our energy resources efficiently, effectively and in a way that has a minimum impact on the environment within the scope of the sustainable development objectives” and the quote from Article 56 of the Turkish Constitution. The reader may get the impression that these quotes are there to suggest a contrast between what is being said and what is being done, which is a form of editorializing. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:40, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

   I feel strongly that the quote from the constitution should stay because 1) legal cases presumably rest on it - perhaps I should try and find the actual cases to make that clear 2) I need to check whether it remains in the proposed new constitution but I am not sure whether a draft has been published yet. But re the other quotes you make a very good point. As I am so close to the article it is hard for me to tell what is good and what is not - could you possibly go through and remove all the quotes (except the constitution one) you think unworthy of a featured article? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

   I have removed some quotes Chidgk1 (talk) 17:55, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Clayoquot Thanks for useful comments - I have made some changes - would you have time to make changes too? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Much as I'd love to help more directly, I'm not good at being both a writer and reviewer at the same time, so I'll focus on comments for now. I've started to take a look at the sources. The OECD 2019 one and the IEA 2021 one look really strong. Are there any others that you'd consider to be among the most highly authoritative? Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:19, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Well obviously the official Turkish government sources are the best to cite for figures once we penetrate the wording. Fortunately for me a lot of them are in English. I am hoping that the spreadsheet cell addresses in the footnotes may be useful for other middle income country articles once they start submitting their Paris spreadsheets to the UNFCCC - for example South Africa and Indonesia coal emissions. Also people working on other country articles could copy and paste their data into the code to generate some of the graphs - anybody want to graph Russia their spreadsheets are already available? Apart from that the Shura studies are the most useful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chidgk1 (talk • contribs)

Thanks. The Carbon Brief source also looks top-quality. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:03, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Clayoquot More comments welcome Chidgk1 (talk) 17:55, 2 October 2021 (UTC)