The Turkish government has chosen cutting emissions from the waste sector as its top priority for COP31’s action agenda, according to a draft seen by Climate Home News.

The document, which other countries will feed back on before it is published in March, lists 14 priorities, with the “rapid reduction of waste-derived methane emissions” ranked first.

The “action agenda” is the part of the COP process aimed at inspiring and enabling real-world climate action. It runs separately from the formal negotiations between countries, which will be presided over primarily by Australia under an unusual compromise agreement.

Reducing emissions from garbage disposal is the personal project of Turkish first lady Emine Erdoğan. She leads the Zero Waste Foundation and successfully lobbied the United Nations for a global Zero Waste Day.

More contentious topics like fossil fuels do not explicitly feature in the action agenda. At a press conference on Thursday, Türkiye’s environment minister and COP31 incoming President Murat Kurum said “we cannot simplify things down to only fossil fuels” as it is just “one branch of the struggle”.

Nearly 68% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels, while waste accounts for about 4%. Most of these emissions come from waste decomposing in landfills and releasing greenhouse gases as it rots, with a smaller amount generated by the incineration of waste to produce electricity.

Türkiye’s draft action agenda says that circular economy policies, like extending manufacturers’ responsibility over their products’ disposal and eco-design, should be scaled up, meanwhile systems to measure, report and verify emissions should be strengthened. Measurable results towards achieving zero waste should be delivered before 2030, it adds.

To achieve this in the short term, it says, there should be more organic waste diverted from landfills, better capturing of landfill gas and cleaning up of methane super-emitters. Longer-term solutions include recycling and composting.

Waste campaigners excited

Kait Siegel, director for waste methane at the Clean Air Task Force campaign group, said she was “excited to see Türkiye elevate the issue of waste sector emissions” and “continues the trend from COP29 and COP30 of including this topic in the action agenda”.

She said waste emissions data collection and monitoring must be improved worldwide, alongside building capacity and funding mechanisms at both national and subnational levels.

At COP30 last year, an initiative backed by the Global Methane Hub was launched to cut 30% of methane emissions from organic waste by 2030, with 25 cities involved.

The initiative aims to recover surplus food, integrate waste workers into the circular economy and scale up city pilots, composting hubs and foodbank networks.

Siegel said she was interested in seeing how this will be implemented, how finance can be scaled up and how satellite remote sensing data can be better incorporated.

Mariel Vilella, who leads global climate work at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, told Climate Home News that focussing on waste is “both urgent and overdue”.

She said that waste methane is a “powerful super-pollutant and prioritising zero waste solutions offers one of the fastest, most cost-effective pathways to deliver meaningful progress towards global climate goals”. Solutions include waste separation, composting, recycling and biological treatment, she said.

But Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at 350.org, said that, while waste management is important, “COP31 will ultimately be judged on whether it helps drive the transition away from fossil fuels” and efforts should focus on agreeing a roadmap away from coal, oil and gas.

Türkiye is a major importer of European waste, much of which is intended for recycling. In practice, however, significant volumes end up in landfills or are illegally burned in the open, generating greenhouse gas emissions and polluting the air and soil. The Zero Waste initiative, launched in 2017 by Emine Erdoğan, aims to address these problems.

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Türkiye prioritises cleaning up garbage emissions in COP31 ‘action agenda’