00:04Climate resilience is one of the most pressing challenges of our time.
00:13More people live in cities than ever before, and as the climate warms they face more heat,
00:18drought and flooding. Keeping them livable means smarter ways to manage water, energy and space.
00:25In this episode of Earth Now, I'm in Turkey, where new technology, including blockchain,
00:30is being used to verify where the city's energy comes from. We then travel across to Uzbekistan,
00:36where one city is being built from scratch and another is changing around what's already there.
00:41Climate change is putting cities everywhere under pressure. In Turkey, cities hit by the 2023
00:46earthquakes are being rebuilt with the next shock in mind.
00:54O'rı'n ward sayın bakanımızın liderliğini de ayağı kaldırırken, bütün şehirleri altyapılarıyla,
01:00sosyal donatılarıyla, yine burada atık su tünelinden tutun, şehirlerin içerisindeki dere ıslahlarına,
01:09hatta ulaşım aksana kadar bütün süreçleri yeniden koordine ederken,
01:14binaların özellikle iklim dirençliliği noktasında da bütün çalışmaları o yaptığımız
01:20We have done a lot of work with 4-5,000 units in the field.
01:29As cities change to cope with the changing climate, there has to be a way of proving that change is
01:34real.
01:34At City Exchange Istanbul, certification system built on blockchain tracks where the electricity comes from.
01:40YECKE sertifikasyon sistemi ile birlikte yenilenebilir enerji santrallerinden üretilen elektriğin tüketimle buluştuğunu ispatlayabiliyoruz.
01:51Örnek vermek gerekirse, elektrikli araçların kullandıkları elektriğin yenilenebilir enerji santrallerinden,
01:59yani güneş, rüzgar ya da hidroelektrik santrallerinden şebeke vasıtasıyla araçlara kadar iletildiğini YECKE sertifikasyon sistemi ile takip edebiliyoruz.
02:11Bu sertifikasyon sistemi blockchain üzerinden bu elektrik teslimatının %100 doğru ve gerçek bir şekilde hayata geçtiğini de ispatlıyor.
02:21For an advisor to the climate high level champion working with Turkey's Zero Waste Foundation,
02:26building resilience starts with awareness and changing how people think about risk.
02:31Why is it that when a disaster happens, we are all helping each other to rebuild, to do this,
02:38but then we have a disaster happening and we are pretending that because I get in my car, I'm moving,
02:45it is not happening.
02:46So cities must actually get their schools, government might get their schools and put climate into their curriculum
02:53so that everybody understands that, listen, we are not blaming anyone.
02:58However, it's like a flood, it's coming down, we are at the bottom of the mountain, it's going to sweep
03:06us.
03:07That is what is going to happen.
03:09So I think the responsibility is not about whether it is the obligation of one or the other,
03:15but creating awareness, knowledge and teaching right from the beginning.
03:23That's all from us here in Turkey.
03:24We now head to Uzbekistan, where planners are building a new city from scratch,
03:28while in the capital, Tashkent, they are adapting to what's already there.
03:38Cities are growing and its temperatures rise, keeping them livable means changing how we use water, space and energy.
03:46Here, outside of Uzbekistan's capital, an entirely new city is taking shape.
03:51New Tashkent is being built from grounds up, giving planners an opportunity to prepare for environmental challenges
03:57before the city is filled with people.
04:00For now, much of New Tashkent is still under construction,
04:03but some of the choices that will shape how the city responds to heat are already being made.
04:08A World Bank assessment identifies climate change and urban growth among the pressures on Tashkent's resilience.
04:15In hot summers, trees provide shade and can help reduce heat at street level.
04:19Planners want parts, trees and waterways to form part of the city's infrastructure from the beginning.
04:26But creating more green space also means finding the water to sustain it.
04:51Greenery is one part of the plan. How the city produces and uses energy is another.
04:57The first thing that I would like to note is the completion of the first stage,
05:03which is the 120 MW of the regeneration plan, boiler station,
05:08which will provide the full city view decentralized heating and cooling system.
05:13This solution will significantly reduce the electricity consumption by more than 30%.
05:20Rooftop solar panels are also part of the plan.
05:24Here engineers are building a 3 generation system designed to produce electricity, heating and cooling through an integrated network.
05:32The aim is to use energy more efficiently by designing their systems together from the start.
05:38The system is designed to operate differently across the seasons.
05:53New Tashkent is being designed from the ground up.
05:57In the existing capital, the challenge is different.
06:00Roads, buildings and neighbourhoods are already in place, so creating more green space means adapting the city around them.
06:07On Tashkent's outskirts, one such effort is still at an early stage.
06:38The trees here are still young and in hot, dry conditions,
06:42planting them is only the beginning.
06:45Planting a tree takes minutes.
06:47Keeping it alive through Tashkent's hot, dry summers is a much bigger challenge.
06:52So the success on green species like this one depends not just on how many trees go into the ground,
06:58but on what happens to them afterwards.
07:01New Tashkent and Tashkent are approaching the same challenge from different starting points.
07:06In both, the longer test comes after construction and planting, whether the trees survive,
07:12whether the energy systems perform as intended and whether the infrastructure keeps working as the cities grow.
07:25It's clear that there is no single way to prepare a city for a changing climate.
07:30Some are using new technology to track their energy, others are designing it into their foundations.
07:35But all of them are already planning for a future that's already arriving.
07:39That's all for this episode of Earth Now.
07:42Join us next time when we look at how shipbuilders and factories are working to clean up the air we
07:47breathe.
