Thursday, Oct 23, 2008
Gulf News
Dubai: Newspaper headlines scream natural disasters. It makes for heart-wrenching reading but 'today's news is yesterday's bin liner'.
As the world moves on, quite often, the heart of the story lies buried - beneath the rubble and the sound. While we may be ready to colonise another planet, children continue to fall prey to climate-related disasters, such as floods, landslides and hurricanes.
According to a 2007 environment report from the UK, approximately 175 million children will be affected by climate change induced natural disasters over the next decade. This is 50 million more than the past 10 years.
Children are hoping that adults might help with the solution by combating climate change. Young artists from around the world are lending their voice to the message through the 'Paint for the Planet' event.
Youngsters sent in 200,000 entries to the recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) International Children's Painting Competition.
On October 25, a selection of the winning paintings from the collection will be auctioned at the Harvard Club of New York City, to raise emergency funds for children affected by climate-related disasters. A statement from UNEP said that the proceeds would go to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund.
Prior to that, on October 23, an exhibition featuring more of the original artworks from the competition will be opened to the world, at the UN headquarters in New York. Together the exhibition and auction comprise the 'Paint for the Planet' event.
After New York, the exhibition will travel around the world, with final stop being the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009.
Paint for the Planet is the start-off for the 'Unite to Combat Climate Change' UN campaign that calls for a definitive agreement between nations on the issue.
Gabrielle Medovoy, one of the young American artists featured in the exhibition, said: "The message I would like to send to the leaders of the world is that Nature is in danger because of climate change. Children of today, in different countries, are already in danger because of global warming! Please do everything in your power to prevent it!"
In addition to the live auction, the art will also be sold online on eBay.com in partnership with LiveAuctioneers to enable people from around the world to participate. Pre-bidding for the auctioned paintings will also be available on www.unep.org/paint4planet.
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
