First lady urges shift to durable goods for sustainability
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Emine Erdogan, the first lady of Türkiye and chair of the UN’s Zero Waste Advisory Board, spoke at the International Energy Agency’s High-Level Energy Transition Dialogue, calling for a move away from disposable products and towards sustainable consumption.
She connected increasing extreme weather events to rising energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that reducing consumption should be prioritized alongside increasing clean energy production. Erdogan explained that current wastefulness embeds energy, resources, and labor into items that are quickly discarded.
She pointed to global food waste as an example, stating that the world loses the equivalent of 5.8 trillion plates of food each year, along with all the energy used to create it. Türkiye is addressing these issues through its Zero Waste Project, launched in 2017. Erdogan stated that Türkiye currently ranks fifth in Europe and eleventh globally in renewable energy capacity, and plans to increase its solar and wind power to 120,000 megawatts by 2035.
