The Right to Clean Air Platform (Temiz Hava Hakkı Platformu – THHP), consists of 15 medical professional organizations, environmental and climate NGOs, working together on air pollution and its health impacts in Turkey since 2015 and published the 5th Dark Report that is regularly published every year. According to the Dark Report 2022:
- Legal limits for pollutants in Turkey are well above the air quality guidelines of the World Health Organization.
- According to the World Health Organization standards, there is no city in Turkey that has clean air.
- In Turkey, air pollution ranks 5th among the risks that cause deathafter tobacco, overweight, high blood pressure and high blood sugar.
- It is estimated that the number of people who lost their lives due to diseases that are attributable to air pollution in Turkey in 2021 is at least 42,067 (forty two thousand and sixty seven).
- If the thermal power plants in the country are closed gradually until the year 2030, getting rid of the health costs of 195 billion Euros that corresponds to the country’s total health expenditure of 12.5 years.
- Air quality monitoring in Turkey was insufficient in 2021. Although air quality monitoring stations have increased in number across the country, there has been no improvement in monitoring efficiency. For example, only 165 of the 340 stations were able to measure PM10 for 90% of the year. We can calculate PM10 annual average concentrations for only 34 provinces; there is no sufficient data for 47 provinces’ PM10 concentrations.
- Although there was a temporary decline in air pollution, especially in some big cities due the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, there was no improvement in air quality reflected in the annual averages for PM2.5 or PM10 concentrations.
- 2021 was the year Turkey had experienced intensive forest fires. According to the reports of the European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), Turkey was the country most affected by natural fires in the Mediterranean basin and related air pollutionin 2021.