MARMARA FOUNDATION IN BLED STRATEGIC FORUM            The text of the intervention delivered by Dr. Akkan Suver President of the Marmara Group Foundation of Istanbul- Turkey, in the Bled Strategic Forum, 27 August 2007 I would like to thank both the organizers of this conference and His Excellency Dr. Dimitrij RUPEL, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, for the opportunity extended to me to address this august assembly. I highly welcome your initiative of putting the issues related to the role of science for sustainable energy development and addressing the energy poverty, at the core of the deliberations on ‘Energy and Climate Change’. At the outset, I would like to address a fictitious scenario: Energy and climate have so far been complementary to each other, constituting a kind of unity and consequently, giving birth to global warming. But, if this phenomenon continues as it does today; in other words, if the global warming continues to affect the world, Northern Europe may probably see some benefit from it; however, the Mediterranean Region will be suffering from severe drought conditions and the tourism industry will face extreme difficulties. As a result, in the coming years less people will freeze to death in Northern Europe, better harvests will be reaped and the coasts of the North Sea may be regarded upon as the new “Riviera”. Furthermore, because of the global warming, Europeans may no longer prefer the Southern European Countries for their holiday destinations. Therefore, the tourism sectors in Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey will be deeply affected by these changes. The European tourist population, reaching nearly a hundred million people, will be searching for new holiday resorts in Northern Europe, while scores of thousands of deaths may be registered as a result of the rising temperatures in Southern Europe. According to the scientists, 3 degrees Celsius increase in temperatures in Europe, will cause the death of more than 87 thousand people, beginning by the year 2071. If policies for reducing the release of the gasses causing the Greenhouse Effect may be able to limit the rise in the temperatures at 2,2 degrees Celsius , the increase in deaths will not exceed 36 thousand people. The more the global land-surface temperatures increase because of the continuing climate change, the more snow and ice cover around the world, will diminish. Average global sea levels will rise and the ocean temperatures will increase. Regional climate changes and especially the increase in temperatures will influence many physical and biological systems. Especially the glaciers will disappear. Permafrost layer will melt. Ice layers will no longer cover the surfaces of the rivers and lakes. Some of the plant and animal species will face extinction. Trees will blossom prematurely during the winter months and insects will emerge earlier than usual, birds and reptiles will lay eggs also earlier than normal periods. The most severe damage will be observed in the countries of the Mediterenean Region. What is to be done to avoid all this? Since climate security and energy security are directly linked to each other, investment for a better life provided by protection of the climate security, will widely contribute to energy security. Thus, there is need to adopt specific strategies in order to achieve the necessary balance between energy and climate security. ‘Minimizing the damage on the nature’ and ‘Reducing the dependency for fossil fuels’ are some of the solutions which come to mind. Thus, the leading countries authoritative on this subject should get together to adopt resolutions on how to deal with problems concerning climate and energy. We, as a civil society organization, as the leading NGO in Turkey, believe that convening such a conference is extremely significant and further believe that the Conference would be conducive to adopting and implementing the necessary measures for securing future energy and climate security. We do need to convene such an international conference without delay, to reach a consensus for achieving better energy efficiency and finding renewable energy sources, since current practices polluting the globe and causing climate changes, as well as dependency on traditional fossil fuels and present incentives for their use , will not otherwise disappear automatically. It is high time to attempt to remedy a catastrophic situation, where Kyoto has so far unfortunately failed, Thank you for your attention.