Development bank to fund cities’ climate action plans

Hazal Özcan - HATAY

Turkey’s İlbank will provide financial and technical assistance to the country’s provinces’ climate action plans, the bank’s vice president has announced.

“I would like to give the good news that we, as İlbank, will provide technical and financial support to the projects regarding the fight against climate change,” Emrah Baydemir said during the closing meeting of Hatay Municipality’s Climate Action Plan.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Hatay Metropolitan Municipality in Turkey’s south have joined forces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the local level, in a bid to tackle climate change issues.

The EU-funded “Carbon Footprint Inventory and Climate Change Action Plan” project aims to strengthen municipalities, while increasing the resilience of institutions, communities and individuals against crises. With an event on Nov. 7, the project’s closing meeting took place as authorities and officials provided information on the action plan’s process and progress.

“The United Nations has sustainable development goals. These goals, which need to be actualized until 2030, have been accepted by worldwide institutions and organizations. We, as İlbank, do everything in our power to achieve these goals without local administrations,” he said.

Although Baydemir did not disclose details of the budget of the planned financial and technical assistance, he said that the provinces’ infrastructures and transportation are leading issues in the matter.

“So, we will prepare transportation projects with local administrations. We will prepare the sustainable urban mobility plans,” he said.
Baydemir said that changes in a city’s infrastructure can make way for less water usage.

A decline of excess drinking water usage will protect the current water resources while saving electricity, used while distilling the water, he said.

Turkey’s Environmental and Urbanization Ministry and its relevant directorates have started to adjust regulations to actualize the provinces’ climate action plans, he conveyed.

“These [climate action] plans offer the necessary precautions, but what is important is what kind of work we will do in the field, in order to achieve these goals,” he said.

İlbank currently has a project which provides financial support to municipality’s sewage and infrastructure systems.

The SUKAP (Water, Sewage and Infrastructure Projects), kicked off in 2011, grants remittances to municipalities, which has a population under 25,000. The remittances cover 50 percent of all infrastructure projects. İlbank also issues long-term credits for the remaining 50 percent of expenses of the projects.