Ministry of Environment and Urbanization Failed to Reach Any of its 2019 Targets

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The Ministry of Environment and Urbanization has released its performance report for the year 2019.

The report has shown that the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization failed to reach its targets in several projects of critical importance, ranging from strengthening public buildings against earthquakes to increasing the ratio of protected areas to the country's surface area and the number of facilities with their greenhouse gas emissions recorded.

As reported by Mert Bildircin from daily BirGün, referring to earthquakes as a risk to the country, the Ministry has indicated that no public institutions or organizations raised any requests for strengthening their buildings against earthquakes in 2019. Having set its 2019 target as 100 in that regard, the Ministry has announced the achieved target as "zero."

No targets could be achieved

While the report has referred to earthquakes, disaster risks, unplanned urbanization and identity problems of cities as "threats", the Ministry has announced that though it planned to increase the rate of household waste recycling as part of "Zero Waste Project" from 13 percent to 18 percent, only 4 percent of this target could be achieved.

The Ministry has argued that the target could not be reached as the data entry on the works carried out as part of the project in 2019 still continues.

Gas emissions, ecology, wastewater facilities

According to the report, the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization failed to meet its targets in several fields, including the following:

* One of the 2019 targets was to raise the ratio of the population of municipalities provided with wastewater treatment facilities to the total municipal population to 89 percent. The Ministry could not reach this target.

* The number of facilities with their greenhouse gas emissions recorded could not be increased as foreseen. While the Ministry was planning to increase the number of related facilities from 641 to 670, it could only start recording the emissions of only 6 facilities. It has been indicated that some facilities were unable to continue operating for economic reasons and, therefore, could not report to the ministry about the issue.

* The steps planned to be taken for ecology could also not be achieved as desired. While the Ministry was planning to increase the ratio of protected areas to the country's surface area from 9.5 percent to 9.7 percent, this target could only be achieved by 55 percent.

'Funding could not be provided' for water quality

The target to increase the number of points with their water quality monitored could also not be met due to a lack of funding.

Though the Ministry initially announced that water quality of three new points would be monitored, it failed to achieve this target "because the necessary funding could not be provided." (TP/SD)