Climate crisis as a violation of the right to environment: An analysis of Turkey's environmental policies towards the climate crisis

One of the global problems threatening the world today is undoubtedly climate change. Climate has changed many times since the formation of the earth due to a dynamic process. Since the mid-18th century, human activities have also started to have an impact on climate. With the increasing impact of human activities on the climate since the 20th century, climate change has reached the dimension of an ecological crisis by leaving destructive and irreversible effects. The ecological crisis, which threatens the environment and people in such a way, poses a serious and widespread threat to the exercise and realization of fundamental human rights. The solution to this existential threat to the exercise and realization of fundamental human rights undoubtedly requires the adoption of a rights-based management approach. The idea of taking necessary measures to prevent the effects of the climate crisis and to ensure the sustainability of climate change was put forward in the 1970s and these efforts have continued until today. Turkey is highly vulnerable to the climate crisis due to its characteristics such as the fact that a large part of its territory is located in the Mediterranean climate zone, its complex climate structure, late industrialization and globalization. For these reasons, Turkey has been involved in global efforts to address the climate crisis since the very beginning of the process, despite various reservations. In this study, the climate crisis will be analyzed in the context of violation of the right to environment and Turkey's national policy documents will be analyzed. In this context, the aim of the study is to analyze the role and functionality of Turkey's policy documents in preventing the negative impact of the climate crisis on the exercise and realization of human rights