The Directorate of Communications and the Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation, and Climate Change organised the fourth media tour on the environment and climate from 13 to 16 October 2026. İstanbul and Muğla hosted the fourth leg of the media tours held as part of COP31.
20 foreign press members invited from 15 countries, namely the United States, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Portugal, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, Croatia, Lithuania, Serbia, Egypt, Morocco and Bulgaria, were hosted in Türkiye as part of the "Road to COP31: Sustainable Future International Media Programme," organised in the run-up to COP31, which Türkiye will host in November.
Through the programme, Türkiye’s environmental and climate policies, its vision for sustainability, and its efforts to combat climate change were presented to members of the international press. Participants had the opportunity to explore Türkiye’s zero-waste and environmental management practices first-hand, as well as gain insight into efforts to protect marine ecosystems.
As part of the media tour, participants first visited the Turkish Shipbuilders’ Association (GİSBİR) in İstanbul. After a briefing on the facility's activities and the world’s first electric tugboats, participants visited Energy Exchange İstanbul (EPİAŞ). At EPİAŞ, the journalists were informed about activities related to the Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin System (YEK-G), which aims to promote the wider adoption of renewable energy sources in electricity generation and consumption and to protect the environment.
The programme's final destination in İstanbul was the Zero Waste Foundation. The participants received information on activities undertaken as part of the Zero Waste Project, launched under the auspices of First Lady Emine Erdoğan.
During the Muğla leg of the programme, participants observed first-hand the work carried out under the Mapa Buoy Project, an environmentally friendly mooring infrastructure project implemented by the Turkish Environment Agency (TÜÇA) to protect sensitive seabed ecosystems and seagrass meadows in the bays of Fethiye and Göcek, as well as activities under the DERİA initiative and seabed sediment removal operations.
