{"id":46799,"date":"2021-11-02T20:24:07","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T20:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=46799"},"modified":"2021-11-02T20:24:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T20:24:07","slug":"bahrain-urges-its-citizens-to-leave-lebanon-amid-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=46799","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain urges its citizens to leave Lebanon amid row"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tLONDON: The Turkish president\u2019s last-minute withdrawal from the COP26 Summit in Glasgow this week is yet more evidence of his disastrous environmental strategy and his inability to listen to his own people, experts have told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\tRecep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew from the summit, aimed at building a multilateral consensus to address the climate crisis, at short notice on Monday, the inaugural day.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe cited \u201csecurity concerns,\u201d claiming that London was not allowing him and his entourage to bring sufficient vehicles to the summit.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut experts have told Arab News that the dubious justification for his last-minute withdrawal is more indicative of his attitude toward tackling climate change \u2014 and of listening to his own people \u2014 than it was of concern for his own safety.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cErdogan will go down in Turkish history as the leader who caused the greatest ecological damage in the country with his insatiable appetite for construction and mining projects,\u201d Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish Parliament, told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent years, Erdogan\u2019s government has made headlines for pushing forward with audacious plans to build a huge shipping lane through Istanbul, effectively turning large parts of the 16-million-person city into an island that intersects Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat project \u2014 expected to cost over $15 billion \u2014 has been slammed by critics for its worrying environmental impact, which includes destroying some of Istanbul\u2019s last few forested areas and threatening to further degrade the city\u2019s already poor air quality with toxic fumes from massive container ships.<\/p>\n

\n\tPublic skepticism of the project has gone largely ignored, and Ankara has gone to great lengths to prevent the formation of credible opposition groups that might challenge Erdogan\u2019s environmental record.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor over a year, the Erdogan government has refused to register Turkey\u2019s Green Party, in clear breach of the country\u2019s political parties law, in yet another sign of his aversion to environmentalism,\u201d Erdemir said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Turkish police\u2019s brutal treatment of environmentalists throughout the country reflects Ankara\u2019s troubling approach to climate activism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for COP told Arab News: \u201cAs hosts of COP26, we are pleased that around 120 world leaders are able to attend, given this is a critical moment for the future of our planet. We look forward to welcoming the Turkish delegation to COP26, and welcome President Erdogan\u2019s recent commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2053.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Erdemir said Turkey\u2019s commitment to reaching net zero via the Paris Climate Accords only came \u201cafter three European countries and two international finance organizations offered financial inducements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the last year, wildfires have decimated the Turkish coast, killing nine people, and a deluge of toxic \u201csea snot\u201d has washed up on the country\u2019s shores, preventing fishermen and others who rely on the sea from carrying out their jobs and pursuing their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith all of the environmental disasters the world over, but especially in Turkey \u2026 ostensibly, Erdogan should be prioritizing (attending COP),\u201d Minh-Thu Pham, a senior advisor at strategic advisory company Connect Frontier and a former UN observer, told Arab News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think, clearly, he\u2019s not made the best decisions regarding climate. It didn\u2019t look great that he decided to withdraw,\u201d she said, adding that political leaders will find a \u201cconvenient reason\u201d to back out of something when they \u201creally don\u2019t want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPham continued: \u201cPeople in Turkey are hurting, and we know that the underlying cause of some of the environmental problems there is climate change, so for him to have shown up would\u2019ve sent a really important signal. A lot of people will see that and wonder about his motivations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLeaders who don\u2019t feel like they have to listen to their citizens don\u2019t feel the pressure to have to do something about the climate, even when their own citizens are suffering greatly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPham added: \u201cWhen the club of countries come together to try to do something on climate, it becomes glaringly obvious that those who aren\u2019t are failing their people. Hopefully, their citizens will notice that and try to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON: The Turkish president\u2019s last-minute withdrawal from the COP26 Summit in Glasgow this week is yet more evidence of his disastrous environmental strategy and his inability to listen to his own people, experts have told Arab News. Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew from the summit, aimed at building a multilateral consensus to address the climate crisis,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}