All parties and actors fighting against climate change in Turkey met on September 27, 2017 in Ankara.

All parties and actors fighting against climate change in Turkey met on September 27, 2017 in Ankara in the opening conference of the Enhancing Required Joint Efforts on Climate Action Project with the participation of Mehmet Özhaseki, the Minister of Environment and Urbanisation.

The opening speeches of the conference started with the presentations of NTV Newsreader Simge Fıstıkoğlu and NTV Meteorology Editor Gökhan Abur, made by Mehmet Özhaseki, the Minister of Environment and Urbanisation, and Gabriel Munuera Vinals, EU Delegation to Turkey Ambassador Undersecretary.

In his speech, Mehmet Özhaseki, the Minister of Environment and Urbanisation made statements about climate change, Paris Agreement and the Whole-City Law.

Özhaseki stated that public institutions, universities, NGOs and volunteers have been working hand in hand in the field of climate change, which has held an important place on the global agenda in recent years, and made available 12 international meetings in 2016, and that they tried to keep the issue of climate change on the agenda. Having mentioned that the activities that will be taken against climate change have been carried out on the horizon, Özhaseki expressed their satisfaction with this situation.

While Özhaseki gave information about climate change in the United States and Britain during the speech, he stated that the Industrial Revolution increased pollution, the United Nations expects the world population to reach 9 billion level in 2050, people will not survive if they continue to consumerism.
In his speech, Özhaseki acknowledged that the surface temperature of the world is accepted to have increased by 1.1 degrees.

During the Opening Conference, the projects carried out by public institutions, universities and NGOs in the field of climate change aiming to raise public awareness on climate change were introduced. In the event, 38 grant projects worth 3.5 million TL were introduced within the scope of Enhancing Required Joint Efforts on Climate Action Project.

In the afternoon, senior public officials, the representatives of universities, academicians, NGOs, municipalities, development agencies and private made presentations about studies for fighting against climate change and local climate action. As the first speaker of the session, Prof. Dr. Levent Kurnaz from Climate Change Research and Implementation Center of Boğaziçi University gave information about climate change in the world and Turkey. Then, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Emin Birpınar, Turkey’s Chief Negotiator for Climate Change and Deputy Undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation talked, about the works carried out on climate change in Turkey.

In the last session of the conference, Gaye Erkan, Team Leader of IklimIN Project, explained the project activities to the participants. The last event of the session was the panel on “Local Climate Action”. The panel was chaired by Mehrali Ecer, Head of Climate Change Department. The panelists were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Osman Balaban from METU Department of Urban Planning, Emine Gökkaya from the Department of Business Development and Strategy of Ankara Development Agency, Dr. Nuran Talu from Global Balance Association and Faruk Telemcioğlu, General Secretariat of International Solar Energy Community Turkey (GUNDER). The panelists gave information about their work in the field of climate change and their experiences they obtained from these works.