WWF: Air Pollution Caused Seven Times as Many Deaths Than Traffic Accidents in Turkey

Click to read the article in Turkish

Turkey's failure to make the necessary regulations regarding coal-fired thermal power plants has led to an increase in cancer-caused deaths in the cities where the plants operate, WWF Turkey has said in a statement.

With a bill passed on November 21 by the votes of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the installment of filters to 15 coal-fired plants postponed for two-and-a-half years. Privatized in 2013, coal-fired thermal power plants were given time till the end of 2019 to complete the necessary environmental investments.

CLICK - Thermal Plants to Operate Wthout Filters for Another Two-and-a-Half Years

The group also said that air pollution caused seven times as many deaths than traffic accidents in 2017, citing an analysis on air pollution measurements and death statistics by the Right to Clean Air Platform Turkey. In that year, 7,424 people were killed in traffic accidents in Turkey, a country of 80 million people.

Thirteen percent of the deaths could have been prevented had the air pollution was reduced to the "reference values" suggested by the World Health Organization, according to the same analysis.

Halting operations at the 15 plants will not cause a reduction in electricity generation as most of the installed capacity is idle anyway, the statement further said.

"Even in the period of peak demand in 2017, only 47,660 MW, or 59.3% of the installed capacity of 80,343.3 MW was used," WWF stated, citing the state-owned Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation.

More than half of the 81 of the country cities "breathed polluted air" according to national limit values in 2018, the statement noted. "In 2018, the worst air quality was in Kahramanmaraş, which came on the agenda with two coal power plants and plans for new power plants in Afşin-Elbistan district." (RT/VK)