The study focuses on the various discourses that emerged on climate change in Turkey and on the local perceptions of global warming. Turkey acceeded as the 189th Party to the UNFCCC in 2004. It has ratified the UNFCCC at a very later stage and is party to Kyoto Protocol in February 2009, one of the last countries that ratified the protocol. It is significant to note that, in doing so Turkey is exempt from any commitments of the Protocol. This places Turkey to an exceptional position in global climate change debates. The paper first discusses and analyses all competing discourses after the announcement of the IPCC report and before the ratification of the Protocol. An interesting debate prevailed about ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Nationalists, government, industrialists and even some environmental NGOs were against Turkey’s ratifying the Protocol prioritizing and framing their argument on ‘economic development’. Another tendency linked climate change debates with the EU accession process; thus, trying to postpone the ratification of the Protocol to 2014. On the other hand, Turkish Greens organized a signature campaign, “Turkey Ratify the Kyoto Protocol”. The second section of the paper is part of a field study that was realized between August-November 2003 and August- September 2006, which is carried out in six villages in the Camili basin. The area is situated in the Black Sea region, in the north east of Turkey, in Artvin. The study is conducted within the scope of Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management Project, funded by the Global Environmental Facility. The research method consists of a questionnaire conducted by local people related with the perceptions and local understandings of climate change.
