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Murat Bakan, an MP for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and a member of the Commission for Environment at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), has released a statement on the occasion of the June 5 World Environment Day.
Bakan said, "We are breaking down the ecosystem by human hands, we are killing the living and inanimate nature," calling for struggle against the climate crisis.
"The life expects help from us! We are approaching the days that the struggles for the environment will determine the agendas all around the world. Civil society organizations, environmentalist lawyers, citizens whose turn have come raise their voices for life.
"There is a real struggle for life. The real survival problem for us is the global climate crisis," he said in the statement.
"We should be a party to the Paris Agreement"
"The countries who signed the Paris Climate Agreement aim to reduce green gas emission by 56 billion tons by 2030 and keep the global temperature increase below 2 degrees until the end of the century.
"The topic of the climate crisis which extremely important for both the world and our future is not even on the agenda of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government. Yet we are approaching the days that the struggles for the environment will determine the agendas all around the world.
Civil society organizations, environmentalist lawyers, citizens whose turn have come raise their voices for life. There is a real struggle for life. The real survival problem for us is the global climate crisis."
Student protests
Students stage a protest in İstanbul.
Referring to the worldwide student protests, Bakan said, "In Europe, students, with the protests they stage every Friday under the slogan 'No Future on a Dead Planet,' draw attention to the climate policies and call the governments to form right policies."
"In Brussels, the capital of Belgium and a home for institutions such as NATO and the European Union, 65 thousand people marched in protests of the government's climate policy. In Vienna, the capital of Austria, 40 thousand people marched with the same demand.
The person who started the protests and considered as the organizer of the protests in Europe is 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden.
"Similar protests were also staged in Turkey. In İstanbul, children demanded a solution for the climate crisis, carrying placards that say, 'We want our future', 'I am five years old, I am not a fossil', 'Goodbye to fossil, hello to the Sun'.
"The real survival problem for us is the climate crisis. If we don't take decisive steps as humanity, there won't be a world where we can live. We won't be able to find water to drink, air to breathe. World wars will begin not because of oil, but because of water."
