Introduction
As the climate crisis deepens, governments were until recently adopting various legal and economic tools to reduce emissions. This process was cut across by the war in Ukraine and geopolitical rivalry between the China- led bloc and the Western imperialists. They have backtracked on their climate promises and started a return to fossil fuels. But still, some “climate policies” are put in place.
One such example, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), was voted on in Turkey with the Climate Law passed in July 2025. However, the market logic underpinning this system ignores the structural causes of the climate crisis, commodifying the “right to pollute” and prioritizing profitability over environmental justice.
The ETS is a system in which the state sets a total emissions cap and allocates specific carbon emission rights to companies within this limit. These rights can then be traded on the market. The goal is to limit total emissions and encourage companies to either adopt cleaner technologies or purchase emission allowances to stay within their quotas. Proponents argue that this mechanism achieves environmental targets in a cost-effective manner.
Carbon trading lies at the heart of the ETS. In this system, carbon becomes an economic commodity. Companies can purchase as many emission rights as they need from the market or sell their surplus allowances for profit. This reduces the concept of being “carbon neutral” to a technical balancing act. For instance, a high-emission energy company may claim to offset its emissions by funding a reforestation project in another region. Yet such strategies do not reduce emissions at their source—they merely redistribute them while leaving the root problem untouched.
ETS and the Climate Law in Turkey: Greenwashing or Institutionalized Plunder?
Although the Climate Law adopted in 2025 in Turkey appears to reflect a national commitment to climate policy, in reality, it introduces market-based instruments that open new maneuvering space for corporate interests. The establishment of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) does not address the structural causes of the climate crisis but rather obscures them while integrating capital accumulation into an ecological framework. In Turkey, ETS has been shaped not by environmental transformation, but by economic alignment, external pressures, and investment opportunities.
While the stated goal of the ETS in the Climate Law is to impose a cost on carbon emissions to incentivize companies to reduce them, in practice the system allows companies to continue business as usual by simply purchasing the right to pollute. Carbon-intensive sectors in Turkey (such as cement, energy, and steel) have long evaded environmental regulations through lobbying and now have gained legal protection through ETS. Instead of reducing emissions, the system merely finances pollution. This represents not a “polluter pays” model but a “polluter buys” one.
The “just transition” principle in the Climate Law is vague and lacks binding mechanisms for how this transition will be achieved, which sectors will be transformed, or how workers will be protected. It remains unclear whether revenues from emissions trading will serve the public good or enrich carbon market speculators. Energy and industrial corporations can engage in speculative trading of emission rights, while workers, farmers, and vulnerable communities bear the economic burden. Companies will have to pay a small price, which they will pass on to their customers as they usually do.
The ETS preparation process in Turkey was conducted behind closed doors, excluding the public, academia, and most importantly, the communities that will be affected. Trade unions, women’s organizations, local governments, and environmental movements were not involved in the discussions, let alone the decision-making process. Instead, the system was developed among “technical experts” and market actors, cloaked in the guise of “expertise” and shielded from democratic scrutiny. This shows that not only carbon but also governance itself has been commodified. Turkey’s ETS exemplifies technocratic capitalism and certainly not the participatory climate policy, as they tried to portray it.
Turkey’s adoption of ETS is largely driven by external pressure, particularly the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which will impose carbon costs on exported products. As such, ETS is not a locally conceived climate measure but a technical “solution” aimed at maintaining export competitiveness. ETS does not represent a “green transformation” but the institutionalization of the exploitation of the environment.
Furthermore, the Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) infrastructure required for ETS implementation in Turkey is severely lacking. Emissions data is often kept confidential between companies and state institutions, with no effective public oversight. Under these conditions, ETS will function as a superficial carbon market with unclear content..
Our Alternative: Non-Market Climate Policies
Emissions trading systems, rooted in market logic, are incapable of addressing the fundamental causes of the climate crisis. A genuine ecological and social transformation requires non-market, public, participatory approaches. These alternatives not only aim to reduce emissions but also to transform structural inequalities, enhance democratic participation, and support a way of life in harmony with nature.
- Mandatory Emissions Caps: Each sector should have legally binding emissions limits based on independent scientific evidence. These caps must be aligned with carbon budgets (maximum amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that can be emitted into the atmosphere while still having a likely chance of limiting global warming to a specific temperature threshold, such as 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels) in accordance with climate science and strictly monitored by independent committees by workers and local communities.
- Nationalisation of the energy sector, transportation and the building industry without compensation for the current owners. These sectors need to work under workers and social control and management to avoid corruption.
- Public Investment and Planning: Direct public investment and research in renewable energy, public transport, energy efficiency, ecological agriculture, and building insulation not only reduces emissions but also creates employment. These investments must be based on public planning and should prioritize social benefit, not be left to the discretion of private capital. Locally tailored planning can also help reduce regional inequalities.
- Democratic Energy Planning and Energy Democracy: In the context of a nationalised energy sector, transferring control of energy production and distribution from central institutions to local authorities, cooperatives, and people’s assemblies strengthens both participation and the protection of energy as a right. Energy democracy represents not just a technological but a political transformation. In this model, energy is a shared right to life, not merely a commercial service.
- Justice-Oriented Climate Policies: In the same context, policies must acknowledge existing inequalities and actively involve women, workers, Indigenous peoples, and marginalized communities in all decision-making processes. Climate policy must be grounded in gender equality, income justice, and historical responsibility. Furthermore, those most affected by the climate crisis must have a central role in shaping the solutions..
- From Profit Orientation to the Common Good: Climate policy must be taken away from the hands of private profiteers and instead be based on public welfare, ecological balance, and the rights of future generations. Fundamental needs such as energy, transport, water, and housing should be reconstituted as public services through nationalisation, resisting the trend toward privatization.
- International Ecological Solidarity and Climate Debt Repayment: Global climate justice is only possible if high-emitting multinational companies to pay reparations to the communities affected.
These approaches are not just technical fixes but points for systemic transformation. By replacing market-driven policies with public ownership, democratic and equitable strategies, we can build lasting and effective solutions to the climate crisis.
Conclusion
Emissions trading systems attempt to “manage” the climate crisis within market logic. Their logic avoids taking up the systems that caused the crisis in the first place. They are not only wrong, but they are doomed to fail, as the experience of the last 15 years have shown since its first implementation in Tokyo in 2010. In Turkey, the ETS approach adopted through the Climate Law facilitates not the actual reduction of emissions, but their redistribution and monetization. ETS, in its current form, is neither an effective tool for emission reduction nor a progressive step towards addressing the climate crisis. On the contrary, it is a “green mask” that further commodifies nature, labor, and our collective future for capital accumulation.
The solution to the climate crisis does not lie in market-based instruments that commodify carbon, but in socialist policies that go beyond capitalism and establish democratic, equitable, and ecologically sound public policies. In its current shape, Turkey’s ETS is not a step forward—it risks further aggravating the climate catastrophe. The real answer to climate change lies not in markets, but in the socialist transformation of society.
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