Climate change to impoverish 100M: World Bank official

By Gokhan Ergocun and Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) - Climate change will push 100 million more people below poverty line by 2030, World Bank country director for Turkey, Europe and Central Asia said on Tuesday.

One of the World Bank’s priorities is to deal with climate change, Johannes Zutt said in an event titled “Developing Green Organized Industrial Zone (OIZ) Framework for Turkey” at a hotel in capital Ankara.

He highlighted that industries and supply chains are key actors in development. “These actors, which help to reduce poverty and increase prosperity, also cause climate change,” he added.

"Today we could invest as much as $170 billion a year for the foreseeable future towards regrouping resource efficiency and utilizing climate friendly technologies."

He underlined that 5 percent of direct greenhouse gas emission and 10 percent of indirect emissions were generated by industries.

Anil Yilmaz, director general for productivity in Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, said the green OIZ is one of the most important projects of the ministry.

He stated that there are now 300 OIZ in Turkey, adding: "74 of them have an energy management unit and 54 of them have an environment management unit, while another 83 get environment management services."

The Green OIZ project in Turkey -- started in Nov. 2016 and backed by World Bank Group -- aims to transform the organized industrial zones in Turkey to environment-friendly and high resource productive eco-industrial parks.