Turkey’s energy plan aims for independence by 2040, HRW says
Human Rights Watch says the plan announced on 5 November aims to expand electrification and renewable investment but sets no concrete target for phasing out fossil fuels.
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Turkey’s National Energy Plan aims to advance electrification and energy independence by 2040, with investment in renewable energy, Human Rights Watch says. The organization says the plan sets no concrete target for phasing out fossil fuels. Electrification means using electricity in place of fuels such as gasoline and diesel.
The government announced the plan on 5 November, after two administrative courts in Kahramanmaraş rejected an expansion of the Afşin-Elbistan A coal power plant in June 2026. The government appealed a ruling against the project in July. Coal supplied 33.9% of Turkey’s electricity generation in 2025.
Electricity targets and the role of coal
The full provisions of the National Energy Plan are not available in the reporting cited here. Agence France-Presse says the plan aims to raise electricity’s share of Turkey’s energy needs from around 22 percent to 36 percent, as an interim step toward the country’s 2053 net-zero emissions target. Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said a broad shift in electrification would enable a 40 percent reduction in emissions by 2040. He called for shifting demand from diesel and gasoline to electricity.
Bayraktar said coal was needed for security of electricity supply and provided employment for at least 30,000 to 40,000 people. He identified nuclear power as the means of replacing coal and said Turkey needed 10 GW of nuclear generating capacity by 2040. It would take until 2030 to know whether enough nuclear capacity would be available by 2040 to replace coal, he said.
In its 6 November report, Agence France-Presse said the first reactor at Akkuyu, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, was due to come online by the end of 2026. Bayraktar pledged to outline plans for a just transition on coal at COP31, the United Nations climate conference in Antalya.
Court challenge and health concerns
The Afşin-Elbistan proposal would add two generating units. Human Rights Watch submitted a brief to a court in June 2025 drawing on its 2024 research into health and environmental concerns associated with the existing plant.
In canceling the project, Kahramanmaraş Administrative Court No. 3 relied on commissioned expert reports that found inadequate assessments of air quality and long-term exposure. The environmental impact assessment also gave inadequate consideration to cumulative public-health impacts. The experts said the assessment had not properly evaluated risks to children, older people and people with chronic illnesses, or comprehensively assessed long-term respiratory and cardiovascular risks from fossil-fuel pollutants.
Human Rights Watch says continued coal expansion undermines the credibility of Turkey’s climate commitments and risks undercutting progress from electrification. Its researcher Deniz Bayram urged policies to end new fossil-fuel expansion and set a clear timetable for phasing out existing coal plants. Bayram said canceling coal projects still going through permitting could be a step toward that goal.
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