Drawing on primary and secondary sources and interviews conducted in Turkish, Azerbaijani, and English, this paper explores Turkey‘s present and future role in promoting European Union (EU) climate change policy objectives within the EU neighborhood, defined as those countries encompassed by the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiatives. Specifically, I argue that Turkey’s pursuit of a domestic climate regime is helping to foster the development of climate policy within the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Turkey’s relationship with Azerbaijan in this respect is used as a case study. Since becoming party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2004, Turkey has made strides in developing its national climate change policy, and has become closely engaged in international climate negotiation efforts. There are both practical and political reasons why Turkey has chosen to put climate change higher on its policy agenda. Practical reasons include that urban development in Turkey is located on its coastlines, and is thus susceptible to sea level rise. In both coastal and inland regions, massive investment in infrastructure systems will also be needed to withstand the effects of extreme weather events. Changes in precipitation are expected to induce both droughts and floods, and also have the potential to aggravate Turkey’s historic water disputes with neighboring countries. Yet from a political perspective – which is the primary focus of this paper – a major catalyst for Turkey’s engagement in both domestic and international climate policymaking is the EU accession process. Given that climate change is of the highest priority in the environmental agenda of the European Union, Turkey is striving to be in line with EU climate change policy. As Turkey seeks to align itself with EU climate policies, it is also positioning itself to help the EU attain its climate change mitigation policy objectives within the European neighborhood, the countries of which share many of the same physical and political concerns as Turkey regarding climate change. Building upon a theoretical basis found in academic literature on environmental regime change, epistemic communities and organizational learning, this paper discusses the various mechanisms and extent to which Turkey’s involvement in climate change policymaking promotes EU climate policy objectives within the European neighborhood. I conclude with discussion of how Turkey’s institutional relationships with these countries are laying the groundwork for greater cooperation on environmental and energy policy initiatives in the future.