A new international cross-sector coalition is launching a European education program offering consumers immediate and lifelong solutions to tackling climate change.
LONDON — A new international cross-sector coalition is launching a European education program offering consumers immediate and lifelong solutions to tackling climate change. Through popular culture initiatives, Climate Change Now seeks to engage the public in reducing its personal carbon dioxide emissions as part of everyday life. Its first target is to switch 1 million European households to renewable energy by September 2006.
Climate Change Now (CCN) is an independent and non-political initiative set up by two young Europeans: Michael Mathres (30, France) & Alex Lambie (28, UK). It is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the European Environment Agency, world luminaries such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Chairman, Green Cross International and part of Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative and the EU’s Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign. It has also received the backing of corporations that are committed to combating climate change and empowering consumers to do the same. These include Honda, Hilton International, John Lewis Partnership, Sun Microsystems, and many more.
Through the CCN website, http://www.climatechangenow.com, switching to renewable energy is easy (takes just 5 minutes) and effective; immediately reducing your total CO2 emissions by 30% - 50%. Achieving Climate Change Now’s target will reduce Europe’s annual CO2 emissions by up to 4 million tons per year and drive millions of pounds towards the R&D of further carbon-neutral consumer products and services.
"Every day we add 70 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into our atmosphere. However, only half can be absorbed naturally. To put it in perspective, this means that we accumulate the volume of more than 6500 pyramids of CO2 in our air every day!" says Michael Mathres, CCN co-founder.
Starting in London (outside City Hall) CCN will launch the campaign by doing a European tour of 16 EU countries providing renewable energy options to consumers. In just 20 days, they will stop in each capital to hold press interviews and encourage Europeans to switch to renewable energy by going to the CCN website. The team will be using Honda Civic Hybrids (IMA) to reduce their CO2 emissions.
Over the next twelve months CCN will be using popular culture (concerts, TV, sports, arts, films, celebrities, consumer brands) to organise and promote exciting events and engage the public in tackling climate change in their everyday lives.
"Popularising climate change solutions engages consumers in tackling the biggest threat to civilization. Adopting these simple and effective solutions enhances people’s quality of life in the immediate and distant future, but time is against us, so we must do it now." said Alex Lambie, CCN Co-Founder.
Source: CSRwire, Climate Change Now
