Ankara (AA) – Turkish Minister of Environment said Wednesday climate change and environmental issues constitute the number one agenda item globally.
Minister Erdogan Bayraktar addressed a conference on World Environment Day, run by United Nations Environment Programme and celebrated every year on June 5.
“The ability of ecological systems to renew themselves is severely limited and deteriorating every day,” Bayraktar said, which damages balance of nature and aggravates global-scale environmental problems such as climate change.
Issues related to environment have ceased to be local or regional, and instead acquired a global character, he said.
“Environmental issues have become topics that countries of diverse cultures and geographical characteristics have all agreed or have had to agree on.”
The minister said Turkey, which has come forth in its region and the world with a theme of peace, should also take a leadership role in eliminating environmental problems.
“Why wouldn't it be possible for us to embrace the hygiene practices enshrined in our culture and be a model for the whole world?”
-“Small enough to pollute, too big to clean up”-
The conference also featured an award ceremony that recognized municipalities, industrial sites and organized industrial zones with a successful environmental track record.
Bayraktar said problems arising out of industrialization and urbanization cannot be solved through government's efforts alone, urging the civil society, the media, opinion leaders, writers and artists to be representatives of environmentally friendly behavior.
“The world is small enough to pollute, but too big to clean up,” he said.
June 5 was established as World Environment Day in 1972 in a UN conference in Stockholm. Since then, major world powers meet every decade to discuss environmental issues of the day.
