Turkish environment minister touts ‘Climate Resilient Cities’ at G20 meeting

NAPLES, Italy

Turkey's environment and urbanization minister praised "Climate Resilient Cities" on Friday during an address to a high-level G20 meeting.

Speaking at the Cities and Climate Action session, Murat Kurum defined climate resilient cities as those that use natural resources effectively, ensure the balance between production and consumption and develop and implement participatory policies.

Kurum was in Naples, Italy to attend a meeting of environment and energy ministers from the Group of 20.

He said for these kinds of cities, integrated plus harmonious policies and strategies are needed.

Emphasizing that in addition to increasing the resilience of cities, durable infrastructure applications are one of the important issues for adaptation to climate change at the local level, Kurum said it is extremely important to accelerate durable infrastructure investments and to use resources efficiently.

Noting that the transformation of cities should be placed at the top of priorities to be successful in combating climate change, Kurum said: “As Turkey, we know that determination in this matter is important to be successful. We are taking steps to ensure the highest level of cooperation on a national and local scale.”

Turkey is expanding its smart city and zero waste practices with regional and local action plans that were started in the Black Sea region, said Kurum.

“As the Ministry, we have accelerated our efforts to reduce energy consumption in our buildings,” he added.

“We carry out all our construction activities with this sensitivity, in our 2.5 million houses we have built so far and 300,000 urban transformation houses that are currently underway,” he said.

Kurum added that Turkey chooses natural materials, install solar energy systems and implement systems that produce their own electricity in all of its urban transformation projects, social housing and public buildings.