Volkswacht Bodensee - For Turkish NGOs, COP31 offers rare space for action

Debates, workshops, cultural events and a massive rally are on the agenda for the People's Climate Summit that will run alongside the main event in the southern Turkish city of Antalya from November 9.

Although hosting COP31 is a major diplomatic win for Turkey, NGOs and civil society groups know the authorities have little appetite for displays of activism or protest that are part and parcel of the annual climate summit.

Last month, police raided the LGBTQ community, detaining 117 people in an "obscenity" probe.

And ahead of July's NATO summit in Ankara, police rounded up 4,412 people on terror-related charges -- including journalists, civil society leaders and over a dozen environmental volunteers.

While it was unlikely there would be a similar pre-summit crackdown before COP31, it fired a warning shot that did not go unnoticed, said Ozlem Katisoz, a senior climate policy coordinator for Climate Action Network (CAN) in Turkey.

"We are not expecting the government to treat COP like NATO, but what happened then showed how quickly and expansively space can be restricted when the government chooses to do so," she told AFP.

At COP30 in Brazil, tens of thousands marched peacefully, unlike at the previous summits in Egypt, the UAE and Azerbaijan, where NGOs deemed protests outside the UN-run venue unsafe.

For Cigdem Ozbas of the People's Climate Summit, a grassroots initiative of more than 100 organisations and individuals, COP31 was "fundamentally a gathering of civil society" and not like a NATO summit.

"But in the increasingly authoritarian environment in Turkey, nobody can feel fully secure. Detentions can occur at any time, and often the real reasons behind them are concealed," she told AFP.

- Carnival-like rally -

Ozbas said so far, more than 1,000 people had committed to joining the People's Climate Summit, among them over 300 organisations from 100 countries, who will help "make our demands visible" during the first week.

During the second week, there will be forums, thematic meetings and evening monitoring sessions to "examine proposals that amount to greenwashing, that obscure the real issues, or whose commitments remain unfulfilled," she said.

US climate organisations were to run "puppet-making workshops" ahead of a major rally on November 14 that will be joined by unions, rights groups and others that will have "a carnival-like atmosphere".

"The aim is to send a message to decision-makers that we won't accept decisions made behind closed doors under the influence of lobbyists, authoritarianism, or the pressures of growing fascism," she said.

Suheyla Dogan, head of the Kazdagi nature protection association that campaigns against mining projects, said they would be demanding "much more concrete and serious policies" from the Turkish government.

"We have the right to assemble and demonstrate and we will do everything we can within the law to exercise those rights," she told AFP.

- Holding Turkey to account -

Separately, Climate Network Turkiye -- a coalition of 15 top civil society organisations -- is trying to get access to negotiators.

Bengisu Ozenc, head of the SEFiA think tank, said they were looking to use their "substantial expertise and knowledge ... to influence policy agendas through direct engagement with national policymakers".

But the summit has not established a formal consultation process, meaning that apart from some individual initiatives "the scope for such influence has remained quite limited," she said.

CAN's Katisoz said although the civil society groups had ad hoc relationships with government offices and the COP31 presidency, they were pushing for formalised channels.

"What we need is to be part of the formal policy-making structures at the Climate Change and Adaptation Council in order to have meaningful participation opportunities," she told AFP.

It was crucial that foreign visitors hold their Turkish hosts to account, she said, and "check what the Turkish presidency is saying with the facts on the ground in Turkey".

If the Turkish presidency made statements on transitioning away from fossil fuels, delegates should remember there are still new coal plant projects and expansions under way in Turkey.

"The international narrative of the COP presidency should be aligned with the domestic efforts and actions," she said.

M.Vogt--VB