Videos from Turkey

Turkey is grappling with a deepening climate crisis, characterised by extreme heatwaves, prolonged droughts, and devastating wildfires. In 2025, temperatures exceeded 50°C in some regions, triggering widespread fires and water shortages. The Konya Basin, a key agricultural area, has suffered severe droughts, threatening food security and biodiversity. Despite ratifying the Paris Agreement and committing to net-zero emissions by 2053, Turkey’s climate policies remain inadequate. A new climate law, passed in July 2025, introduces an emissions trading system, but critics argue it lacks ambition and fails to phase out fossil fuels. In its renewable energy transition, Turkey also needs to emphasise a just and sustainable approach with more focus on local ownership of the green energy transition.

Ms Nergis

In this video, we are with Ms. Nergis, the head of Mehmetalan Village in Edremit. Mehmetalan is known as a “Tahtacı” village, home to Alevi Turkmen who work with wood. The bond they share with nature is deeply intertwined with their ancestral traditions. The village sits in the Kaz Mountains, a region often in the spotlight for environmental struggles against mining activities.Famous for its water, the streams of Kaz Mountains are said, by some accounts, to reach all the way to the Greek island of Lesbos. Here in Mehmetalan, the community is actively resisting the construction of wind turbines which also posed a threat to nature. We conducted our interview with Ms. Nergis by the river she led us to, a place she cherished from her childhood—where she grew up deeply connected to nature. The river’s water has diminished greatly since her youth, and unregulated tourism has left serious scars on the landscape. Yet the resistance continues. Through her persistent fight, Ms. Nergis has earned the deep respect of her village and was chosen as their head. She warns us with the village’s timeless wisdom: “The way you treat nature is the way it will treat you.” This video is presented in Turkish. Please use the video settings option to choose captions in English, Greek or Italian.