Erdogan urges countries to adopt zero-waste goals at COP31

IEA says recycling can reduce mining needs despite infrastructure limits

At the United Nations COP31 leaders’ summit in Antalya on Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked countries to commit to a zero-waste initiative. Erdogan said the plan was intended to reduce emissions and help get global efforts to curb climate change back on track. Turkish first lady Emine Erdogan, who attended the talks, has been a driving force behind the initiative, which seeks to reduce methane emissions, cut food waste and promote a circular economy in which materials are reused and recycled.

Erdogan said Turkey’s recycling rate had risen from about 13% in 2017, when the zero-waste movement began, to about 40% by the end of 2025. “Some 90 million tons of waste have been brought back into our economy,” Erdogan told the leaders’ summit. “We’ll not stop here and we will continue working and making every effort until we achieve the goal of zero waste.”

Turkey outlined 10 priorities for this year’s climate talks, including a pledge to accelerate electrification. Zero-waste initiatives and electrification emerged as major talking points during the opening days of the conference. The host also wants countries to commit to reducing methane emissions, a goal central to its zero-waste program.

The proposal also reflects the push toward a circular economy, an economic model that generally prioritizes recycling and other regenerative approaches that create less waste. “Recovered materials can be cheaper when reliable supplies, efficient processing and nearby demand outweigh the costs of collection, sorting and transport,” said Samed Agirbas, president of the nonprofit Zero Waste Foundation and a COP31 high-level climate champion.

Energy experts said that, if implemented, the initiatives could slow global warming and reduce the environmental footprint of renewable technologies such as solar panels and batteries. Conference agreements are often nonbinding, past hosts have been criticized for failing to follow through on promises, and Turkey faces scrutiny over its own climate record. There remains a risk that the climate ambitions may fall flat.

“The Zero Waste target is a good target. It definitely needs to be supported with concrete measures and further action,” said Berk Butan, who heads the waste campaign for Greenpeace Turkey. “But fundamentally, we also need to recognize its shortcomings.”

The U.N. says methane is the second-biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide and that reducing methane emissions could significantly slow global warming. During the first three days of the talks, leaders repeatedly called for urgent climate action. The U.N. also recently readjusted a decades-old goal for limiting the rise in global temperatures because the world was blowing past previous thresholds.

Turkey wants countries to commit to reducing methane emissions but has not signed the Global Methane Pledge. Launched at the 2021 climate talks in Glasgow, the initiative aims to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Turkey is also the world’s fifth-biggest emitter of methane from solid waste, according to nonprofit emissions tracker Climate TRACE. “Methane emissions from waste disposal are an important challenge,” said Agirbas, with the Zero Waste Foundation.

A circular economy would help reduce emissions, but not every country has the resources to take such steps. Ke Wang, an energy expert at the WRI’s Polsky Center for the Global Energy Transition, called the approach “a vital strategy for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.” Food waste is difficult to recycle because it decomposes quickly, making separation and processing expensive. Collecting and transporting wet, smelly food waste also requires specialized logistics and infrastructure that many countries lack.

Adalberto Maluf, a top official in Brazil’s environment ministry, said, “Waste and food loss account for almost 10% of total emissions, so we need to integrate these actions.” The estimate covers waste and food loss together, not food waste alone.

Recycling already-mined materials is key to reducing reliance on mining, according to experts, which will become more important as the world relies more on critical mineral-dependent renewable technologies. The International Energy Agency estimates that scaling up recycling could lower the need for new mining by between 25% and 40% by 2050. Most countries do not recycle critical materials because mining is cheaper. The technology and infrastructure needed to recycle these materials are concentrated in a handful of nations, such as China. The European Union and the U.S. will likely have capacity to recycle only 30% of their raw materials by 2040, according to the IEA.

Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, said, “We must do a better job with our materials retrieval, reuse and recycling.” She stressed the need to create incentives for “retrieving the materials, taking things apart, being able to reuse them again in a circular way.”

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