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Climate Initiative (IKI)

Turkey is home to huge landfill sites where waste is piled high and left to rot away slowly over the decades. Organic waste dumps in particular produce high levels of methane that is released into the atmosphere and damages the environment.

Ukraine is one of Europe's most wasteful nations when it comes to energy. Private homes are responsible for some 30 percent of the country's energy consumption, with windows that don't shut properly and radiators that can't be regulated.

Vietnam's booming economy has fueled a growing need for energy - demand is rising by an average 15 percent per year. So far, alternative energies have played a minor role, even though the country has an abundance of wind and water.

Small farmers south of the Sahara are increasingly seeing their harvests devastated by droughts and flash floods. In Ethiopia, some 80 percent of the population is affected. A German-Israeli project aims to ease farming and agriculture in the region.

Televisions and refrigerators are an integral part of every Brazilian household, and families who can't afford new ones buy them second-hand. The result is that one in ten refrigerators in Brazil is more than 16 years old, and therefore a long way from being green: the old appliances contain gases called CFCs.

In order for climate protection to be successful, it has to be advanced the world over, and in order to achieve that, multilateral co-operation is key.

The island of Kho Khao in Thailand was devastated by the 2004 tsunami. Recent years have seen developers rebuild hotels, but unlike in many of Thailand's most popular holiday hotspots, the new resorts have made climate protection a cornerstone of their concept.

Wetlands provide a habitat for numerous types of flora and fauna, and are also valuable carbon sinks. But in Turkey, drainage of wetlands for land reclamation and extraction of groundwater to irrigate agricultural land is upsetting the ecological balance.

In many developing countries, measures to protect the environment tend to be tied up with heavy initial investment costs. But once they're up and running, environmental initiatives not only improve quality of life, they also boost local economies.

Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, and its thick, lush rainforests are home to most of the world's remaining mountain gorillas. But this habitat is increasingly at risk from erosion and forest clearance.