Children’s Art Event to Launch UN Climate Campaign

Children’s Art Event to Launch UN Climate Campaign

The Paint for the Planet event will feature a selection of stand-out entries from UNEP’s International Children’s Painting Competitions.

Showcasing children’s fears and hopes for the planet, the paintings are a powerful plea from children for leadership on climate change before it is too late.

The original artwork has been chosen from a collection of nearly 200,000 paintings which have never been displayed before. The exhibit opens at UN Headquarters in New York on 23 October.

On 25 October, a selection of the paintings will be auctioned at the Harvard Club of New York City to raise emergency funds for children affected by climate-related disasters, such as the recent storms and hurricanes in the Caribbean.

The exhibit is open to all, and the art will also be sold online to enable people around the world to participate. Several of the young prize-winning artists will be flown to New York to share their message for the planet with decision makers, corporate leaders and the media. Paint for the Planet will launch the ‘UNite to Combat Climate Change’ campaign to support the call for a definitive agreement at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. After New York, the exhibit will travel to various climate-related events and meetings around the world, culminating in Copenhagen.

The curatorial partner for Paint for the Planet is the Natural World Museum (NWM), which presents art through innovative programmes to inspire environmental awareness and action among the public.

To participate in the auction, and for more information, contact: lucita.jasmin@unep.org or
anne-france.white@unep.org 

Paint for the Planet – Important dates:

1. 
   Exhibit opening and media event on 23 October, 12.30–2pm at the Main Lobby of United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The month-long exhibit will feature the paintings as well as children’s video messages to global leaders on climate change.
   
2. 
   VIP reception and auction on 25 October, 7–9pm at the Harvard Club of New York City. An online auction will be organized in conjunction with the main event.
   

INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines -- Climate change will be the main agenda for the next two days when at least 15 parliamentarians from countries across Asia, Europe, and Africa meet here, according to organizers in an emailed statement.

Expected to attend the first Roundtable Consultative Meeting for Parliamentarians: Making Disaster Risk Reduction a Tool For Climate Change Adaptation are representatives from the Philippines, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, East Africa, South Korea, and Thailand, according to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

Senator Loren Legarda is a co-convenor in the event at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel that started this Friday. Collaborating with the UNISDR is Globe International, according to the statement.

The consultative meeting aims to discuss, among others, possible ways to push for the creation of a more enabling environment for political commitment and financial investment in reducing disaster vulnerability and climate risks in the context of socio-economic development, it said.

Legarda has prepared extensively for the upcoming global meet, having been an environmental advocate for 20 years, according to the statement.

Before this, Legarda organized a dialogue between local governments and donor agencies such as the Embassy of New Zealand, USAID, AustraliaAID, United Nations Development Program, and European Union to encourage donors to fund local initiatives on climate change adaptation, it said.

In 1998, Legarda established Luntiang Pilipinas (Green Philippines), a nationwide urban forestry program, to promote public awareness on various environmental issues and to enjoin multi-sectoral participation in helping address such concerns, it said.

To date, the foundation has established forest parks with more than two million trees planted in approximately 500 hectares across the country. On its 10th year, Luntiang Pilipinas remains committed to doing its share in saving the environment, it said.

Legarda has authored and sponsored legislation that had been geared towards environmental protection, including one on climate change -- the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2001 -- and was also listed as co-author of the Clean Air Act of 1999.

Aside from these, Legarda filed Senate Bill No. (SBN) 1890 or the Philippine Climate Change Act, SBN 2083 which introduces the concept of “low-carbon economy” through a cap-and-trade mechanism that limits the release of greenhouse gases by the industrial and commercial sector.

As proponent of Senate Resolution No. 303, Legarda sought to create an Oversight Committee on Climate Change, while working with other advocates, particularly from the multi-sectoral network behind the Albay Forum that came up with the Albay Declaration on Climate Change Adaptation.

The World Economic Forum has named Legarda one of the Global Leaders for Tomorrow in 2000. She was awarded by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in 2001, and as a UNEP laureate, her name has been included in the Global 500 Roll of Honor for being in the frontline of global environment action. In 2004, she became an Environment Awardee of the Priyadarshni Academy in Mumbai, India.

Legarda has delivered privilege speeches entitled “CPR for Mother Earth” and “An Agenda for Climate Change Adaptation” in the Senate’s Plenary Halls, which are part of her information campaign on environmental protection.