http://www.neurope.eu/articles/103359.php

VOULIAGMENI, GREECE – Greece and Turkey may disagree on many issues but are brought together in the fight against global warming. Athens and Ankara agreed on 22 October to join forces to combat climate change in the Mediterranean.

In an idyllic setting at a luxury south coast resort near Vouliagmeni, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, together with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, as well as environmental representatives from neighboring Mediterranean countries signed a political declaration on 22 October. The agreement launches the Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative (MCC) in collaboration with leaders from across the Mediterranean and with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB), which aims to accelerate environmental cooperation in the region, protect the fragile ecosystem and promote and implement low-carbon development projects in the region.
There have been a lot of conferences on climate change but this is new because it focuses solely on the Mediterranean. “This initiative for climate change in the Mediterranean, which is taking place here at the Astir hotel has the distinctiveness that brings together all the countries that are around the Mediterranean and are involved or can be involved in the regional fight against climate change,” Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister Spyros Kouvelis told New Europe on 22 October on the sidelines of the conference. “The fact that we have four prime ministers and ministers from all these countries that discussed the issue of climate change and committed by signing a text in a regional level, which we have not seen happen in other world regions, and also the fact that this takes place only a few weeks before the Cancun summit for climate change gives this meeting a special prospect and interest.”
The deputy foreign minister reminded that the Mediterranean Green Development Investors Forum was due to take place here on 23 October on the subject of “Financing profitable green initiatives and investments across the Mediterranean.” The forum was expected to allow key policy-makers, technology providers, business and finance leaders and international investors to discuss the initiatives and investments for a sustainable green economy across the Mediterranean. Kouvelis said business and investment can give a further impetus to the whole effort in the fight against climate change and Green Development. “We have on one side the political commitment and agreement on the highest level, which means a lot, and, of course, it will be followed up by the meeting of the business community. There has to be a platform that will spur development that comes from these sources,” Kouvelis told New Europe.
The Deputy Foreign Minister also hailed the fact that Greece and Turkey joined forces to fight climate change. “It is one more step in the bilateral relationship between Greece and Turkey since it was embraced by Prime Ministers Papandreou and Erdogan who show an innovative leadership in a region of the world for this kind of job,” he said.
Despite differences over territorial rights in the Aegean Sea and the divided island of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey put aside their tensions to work on the climate agreement. “We should begin sometimes the discussion from the points where we have agreement and common goals so that we can also eventually resolve our differences. This is the smart tactic,” Kouvelis said.
The Mediterranean region is already suffering the effects of climate change, with many countries, among them Greece and Turkey, hit with water shortages, increased drought, wildfires and a decrease in crop production.
The Greek Government has launched this initiative in recognition of the serious threats climate change poses to the region’s stability and prosperity, as well as the conviction that embracing a low carbon development model provides a unique opportunity to jointly address financial, energy and climate crises.
Opening the Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative conference, Papandreou said that from within the "bad scenarios" for climate change appearing to be coming true in the southeastern Mediterranean with increasingly frequent extreme weather phenomena and threats to the region's unique agricultural production, "which is a capital for its culture," an opportunity arises that of taking advantage of the cooperation among the regional countries "to develop a new growth model, making use of the region's resources, to create new green industries."