Murat Kurum, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, spoke at the Kartepe Summit with the theme of “Resilient Cities and Transformation of the City”. Giving good news in Kocaeli, the Minister Kurum announced that the Ministry and Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality will start the bottom mud cleaning in the Gulf together.
Kartepe Summit, which is held every year but had to be interrupted for 2 years due to the pandemic; Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, UNDP Turkey Resident Representative Louisa Vinton, Kocaeli Governor Seddar Yavuz and Kocaeli Metropolitan Mayor Tahir Büyükakın, with more than 25 participants from 350 countries, started at the Green Park Hotel.
“We have a target to grow our 81 provinces under the same conditions”
Reminding the prediction of scientists that the world population will reach 9,7 billion in the near future and stating that approximately 63 percent of the population of developing countries will live in city centers, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum said, “91 percent of consumption will also occur in our cities. According to the United Nations, the number of mega-cities will increase to 2030 with a serious increase in 41, and the number of medium-sized cities is predicted to increase to 558. As a country, while the number of cities exceeding 1950 thousand in 500 was only 2, today we have exceeded 40. We have a target for our 81 provinces to grow under the same conditions. In other words, we want our citizens to live under equal conditions in the fields of education, health, culture and industry in all of our 81 provinces. In this sense, we have established our universities in 81 cities and we are strengthening the infrastructure of all our cities with the understanding that the work will start with education.” said.
“Maybe there will be no snow when we summit in Kartepe in the future”
Stating that the world is warming up seriously and that there will be a summit in Kartepe in the future, but there will be no snow, Minister Murat Kurum underlined that the whole world should act in a spirit of mobilization in this last 10-year period.
Minister Kurum said, "It is very important that our citizens keep green, nature and sustainability in the foreground by preventing this extravagance, recklessness and rude industrialization. Because today, as a result of disasters in the world, we are faced with great loss of life and property. Look, we witnessed the extent of the flood disasters in Turkey and again in Germany last year, and we really lost our lives in these disasters. Our cities, the infrastructure of our cities have been seriously damaged. The number, frequency and severity of disasters are increasing both in our country and in the world, and in this sense, yesterday was the World Meteorology Day. We think that the early warning system is also very important. Therefore, we increased the number of data stations from 30 to 2050. By warning our citizens before disasters with green, yellow, orange and red coded warning systems, we carry out this management together with our municipalities and related institutions and organizations. he said.
“According to the results of the Climate Council, we need to take steps to increase resilience”
Minister Kurum expressed the following regarding the Climate Council held in Konya last month:
“The increase in disasters shows us that; From architecture to urban planning, from agriculture and food to education, production, finance, transportation and logistics to environmental policies, we are all obliged to change all approaches and methods and adapt to new conditions, and at this point, as the State of the Republic of Turkey, our President declared to the whole world. We are carrying out our work in line with our '2053 Net Zero Emission' target, and we held a Climate Council in Konya with more than a thousand participants, which we think is rare in recent years, where all components of our non-governmental organizations, universities, academics, and Turkey's next 50 years and 100 years are discussed here. we determined together in consultation and according to our Council results, we need to take steps to increase resilience in all sectors with determination and without wasting time.
I must say right away that this situation is not a choice, it has now become a necessity. We urgently need to take all the steps that will ensure the sustainability of socio-economic activities, urban planning, production, tourism, transportation and education activities. We must prevent the interruption of socio-economic activities, which are already fragile all over the world, due to disasters. For this reason, we need to increase the durability of urbanism, construction sector, agricultural production, transportation and industrial production together with all its details. In addition to making new buildings resilient, we have to adapt our cities to new conditions through transformation, by transforming the old building stock. I consider our country lucky in this regard because we will take all the steps we will take within the framework of the Green Development Goal, sustainability understanding and Green Development we have set, with this understanding. We will make our buildings almost zero energy buildings. We will make the emissions trading system compatible with the European Union.”
“When we come to 2035, there will be no housing that has not undergone urban transformation”
Expressing that they have prepared the infrastructure of the cities together with the municipalities in order to prevent the cities from being affected by the risks and threats posed by disasters due to earthquakes and climate change, Murat Kurum gave the following information on urban transformation studies:
“In this sense, we continue with the slogan of climate-friendly green transformation in this urban transformation, which is within the scope of the urban transformation mobilization all over Turkey in 2012, which was started again by our President, and we have shown a performance that is unmatched in any other country, and in the last 20 years, the transformation of exactly 3 million residences is in place with our nation. We realized it together with our municipalities with a voluntary, fast approach. In this context, we have ensured the safety of life and property of 12 million citizens together.
In this context, we carried out the earthquake transformation of our 80 thousand residences last year, and we are currently continuing the transformation of our 120 thousand residences, whose investment value has reached 350 billion liras in the field. Hopefully, our target is that when we come to 2035, we do not want to have any residences that have not undergone urban transformation in areas at risk of earthquakes in Turkey, and we carry out our work with this understanding.
With urban transformation, we make our cities resistant to all kinds of disasters. In this context, we are building energy efficient, environmentally friendly smart buildings. We have updated our legislation accordingly, and we are reviving and reviving our 45 historical squares in 80 provinces with the slogan of 'loyalty to history, respect to the past', which will also bring our historical city squares to light. In addition, we are moving the industrial sites that remained in the city centers to the new areas we have established outside the city, and within this scope, we are building 11 thousand 7 zero waste industrial site shops in 450 different regions. We both attack our cities with breath, and on the other hand, we actually remove the old building stock and build durable, resistant houses instead, making them become living and production centers. All of these are actually studies carried out within the framework of integrating smart city understanding and smart transportation networks. In our municipalities and TOKİ presidency, we are building our houses based on green roof applications, smart waste and water systems, solar energy panels, climate friendly zero waste compatible and horizontal architecture. In this sense, we are building 81 national gardens in our 434 provinces in our cities, with the target of 81 million square meters. We have completed 125 of the people's gardens, hopefully we will quickly make other people's gardens available to our citizens."
“Bottom sludge cleaning will be started in the gulf”
Minister Kurum concluded his speech with a good news from Kocaeli for Kocaeli:
“I want to give good news in Kartepe, Kocaeli. Actually, we were going to make a different program about it, but I think this is correct. Hopefully, this year, Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality and our Ministry will start the cleaning of bottom mud in the Gulf by carrying out a joint study. Hopefully, we will share the details of these with all our Kocaeli citizens in the coming period. We will clean the bottom mud in our Bay, as we did in all our lakes in Salda, Mogan, Van Lake and Beyşehir before, and we will make our Bay, our people, and our citizens worthy. In this framework, we will realize a landscape and nature protection project where all living things will come back to life, where we will wander around our Bay in a peaceful way and spend time. I wish that this project will be beneficial for our Kocaeli, and I wish that the Kartepe summit will be beneficial for our country, our nation and our cities.”
Kartepe Summit with the theme of "Resilient Cities and Transformation of the City" will last for 4 days.
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