Topbaş signs Copenhagen Climate Communiqué

One of them was Greater İstanbul Municipality Mayor Kadir Topbaş.

“In today’s world, cities and local governments have central roles. They are at the center of solutions to problems,” he told Today’s Zaman.

Topbaş added that local authorities can see problems right at their sources and implement practices to resolve them. But their handicap is the central government, which might be clumsy and short of providing the necessary financing.

Mayor Topbaş was among about 100 mayors from around the world invited to the Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors on Dec. 14-17.

Lord Mayor of Copenhagen Ritt Bjerregaard said cities greatly influence climate change because the majority of the world’s population lives in cities.

“We are responsible for more than 75 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions,” she said.

Copenhagen has ambitious plans to reduce the city’s harmful emissions by 20 percent by 2015. And they are set to make Copenhagen the world’s first carbon neutral capital by 2025. It will adapt to harsher weather by growing grass on the city’s roofs and burning wood and straw instead of coal to create heat.

In addition, the wind farms close to the city will be jointly owned by Copenhageners. They also have a goal to get even more people on their bikes -- 55 percent of all Copenhageners already choose to go by bike in the morning.

‘No waste will be wasted in İstanbul by 2023’

Speaking at a roundtable meeting with mayors of other world cities on Tuesday afternoon, Topbaş outlined what he is already doing and planning for the future of İstanbul in order to make it a leading and innovative municipality.

Topbaş said İstanbul, home to 14 million inhabitants, produces 14,000 tons of waste and 2.5 million cubic meters of wastewater daily. He emphasized that 43 percent of the Turkish economy and 33 percent of Turkish industry are based in İstanbul.

“The industries that are already operating in İstanbul will continue to operate, but we will not issue new licenses for industry in İstanbul,” he said, sitting next to the mayors of Los Angeles, Rome, Taipei and Riga at City Hall. There were four other similar roundtable meetings going on simultaneously.

Topbaş also said there will be no unused waste left in İstanbul by 2023. There are already waste management projects in the city generating electricity from landfill gas.

Topbaş stated that emission reduction has been achieved by altering 100 public buses so they are able to use natural gas and that 10 hydrogen-fueled bus projects are on the way.

He also mentioned the Metrobus line, which provides an additional and fast transportation system for İstanbulites, carrying 750,000 passengers daily.

“The Metrobus project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 tons annually. After the Metrobus line started operation, some 80,000 vehicles were [removed] from daily traffic by the implementation of the project.”

Afforestation activities between 1995 and 2008 provided about 3 million planted trees and a reduction of some 89,100 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, Topbaş stated.

Another point he made concerned encouraging organic farming by sending some İstanbul residents back to their villages and having them produce wheat and rye for bread making in İstanbul.

City of hope: Hopenhagen

Mayor Topbaş also participated in the opening ceremony of the Future City Pavilion in front of City Hall. Copenhagen, a city of hope and nicknamed Hopenhagen, is lit by an interactive projection that shows a rotating image of Earth. The globe shines in the darkest hours from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m.

As the mayor left for Marrakech to attend the fifth edition of the Pan-African Local Government Days, “Africities,” he is not expected to return to Copenhagen for a meeting of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), which he heads as co-president.

Topbaş said the activities for the UCLG have yet to be clarified by the UN Climate Conference organizers.

“There are some problems with the UN organization,” he said.

Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned that with or without a global deal, states and cities would go forward with their own programs to reduce carbon dioxide pollution.

“Certainly it would be terrific if the world’s governments reached an agreement and put hard caps on greenhouse gases while generously helping poor nations” fight climate change, said Schwarzenegger, who spoke at the UN conference on Tuesday and was also the keynote speaker yesterday at the Climate Summit for Mayors.

Bloomberg, who last month won a third term in office, warned, “We can’t sit around and wait for the federal governments to act.”

When US President Barack Obama arrives early on Friday, the last day of the conference, it may become clearer whether he and some 110 other leaders can shake hands on a political deal to control climate change.