Türkiye has gathered 630 low-emission buses from 25 municipalities to carry participants at the UN Climate Change Conference COP31 in Antalya, and the summit site will also be used as an open-air and indoor art gallery during the conference, Anadolu Agency (AA) and the İhlas News Agency (İHA) reported on Saturday.
COP31, the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, takes place in Antalya from 9 to 20 November.
19 bus routes, from Kemer to Alanya
Of the 630 buses, 71 are electric and 233 run on natural gas, while the rest are low-emission diesel vehicles, all produced in Türkiye, Ahmet Sami Kulaklıoğlu, head of support services at the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, told AA. The ministry is coordinating transport for the event.
The buses will run between hotels, the airport, the bus terminal, the city centre and the venue on 19 routes, covering areas including Belek, Kundu, Lara, Kemer and Alanya. The venue can also be reached by tram from the city centre, and has parking for 5,000 cars and 400 buses, according to the AA report.
Organisers expect more than 50,000 people a day in the Blue Zone and over 100,000 in the Green Zone. Because Antalya had no natural gas buses before, a new natural gas filling station was built and has started refuelling. Logistics trucks will deliver materials between 21:00 and 06:00 so as not to disrupt daytime events, Kulaklıoğlu said.
COPArt: ‘Still Possible’
The ministry will use the whole COP31 site as an art gallery under the COPArt project, titled "Hala Mümkün / Still Possible", from 9 to 20 November, according to İHA. Entry to the Green Zone is free for the public, while the Blue Zone is open only to UN-accredited delegations.
Minister Murat Kurum, who is also COP31 President, said more than 1,000 works would be shown, along with over 50 open-air installations and 48 panels and talks in a 6,600-square-metre indoor exhibition space. The director and curator is Nagihan Özel.
The "Six Masters, Six Traces" (Altı Usta Altı İz) exhibition will include works by Fahrelnissa Zeid, Burhan Doğançay, Ömer Uluç, Devrim Erbil, Mehmet Güleryüz and Haluk Akakçe, as well as earlier painters such as Osman Hamdi Bey and İbrahim Çallı. The international selection includes Anselm Kiefer, Heinz Mack, Koen Vanmechelen, Luke Jerram and Pascale Marthine Tayou, among others.
For more on the city, see our guide to living in Antalya.
Sources
- COP31’de ulaşım 25 belediyeden sağlanan 630 çevre dostu otobüsle yapılacak (Haberler.com / AA)
- Antalya’daki COP31 için 25 belediyeden 630 çevre dostu otobüs getirildi (Son Dakika / AA)
- Antalya’daki COP31 alanı COPArt ile açık ve kapalı sanat galerisi olarak kullanılacak (Haberler.com / İHA)
- Bakanlık, Antalya’daki COP31 Alanı’nı COPArt kapsamında sanat galerisine dönüştürüyor (Son Dakika / İHA)
Photo: Maksym Kozlenko / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
