Press Release
Disappointment after the failure of Copenhagen:
1000 Children are demanding climate justice and call for it with the motto, “Stop Talking. Start Planting.” They have invited Environmental Ministers from around the world to a planting party in Bonn, Germany in the month of May.
Pähl, 1.31.2010 – After the failure of the Climate Conference in Copenhagen to provoke nations to act against climate change, and in order to prevent a similar failure at the 2010 Review conference in Mexico, 20 students from Plant-for-the-Planet, met with each other in the last week of January.
The purpose of the meeting was to decide upon the activities of the initiative in 2010. The youth were convinced that, “had the 10,000 delegates in Copenhagen planted trees the entire week, more would have come out of the conference.” (Felix, Age 12, from Pähl)
20 climate ambassadors from the school initiative Plant for the Planet participated in this meeting. These 10 – 14 year olds from Germany represent the initiative’s 1000 climate ambassadors, along with the many other children active in the initiative worldwide. Throughout the weekend they discussed what they could do to bring adults a little bit closer to accepting the idea of climate justice, as well as how to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and how to eliminate imbalances in the distribution of these emissions from different regions of the world.
The invitation to the large planting party is set for the Conference of Environmental Ministers in Bonn, Germany in May -- a preparatory meeting for this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Mexico.
The children’s national attention-grabbing action will be a huge tree-planting party with all of the environmental ministers. This will organize the youth together with the ministers of the participating nations in Bonn, who will be preparing for the UN Climate Conference taking place in November in Mexico.
The children are in contact with the Chancellor, the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, and the Ministry of the Environment so that their campaign, “Stop Talking. Start Planting,” can be recorded on the official agenda in the Environment Conference, and that the children and ministers can organize together next to the meeting hall in order to the engage in the tree planting.
Also invited to bring along their shovels and rubber boots are all of the prominent individuals who publicly support the “Stop Talking. Start Planting,” campaign, such as: Peter Maffay, Hans Küng, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and Michael Stitch.
In addition to this group, several thousand youth aged 10-14-years-old from all over Germany will participate in this event. In Pähl the ambassadors had discussed many ideas on how to mobilize other children from every city in Germany to arrive in Bonn and participate. Due to support from many people including school principals, the event in Bonn will be declared a training course on political education and release students from regular classes.
“In Bonn we will show, that we can all work together to solve problems. Imagine people from around the world planting trees for climate justice together, before the conference in Mexico!” said 13 year old Jule, from Axted in Bremen.
Max, 12 years old from Berlin, added that, “With every minute that the adults only talk about action instead of doing it, we become more and more certain that we kids have to take the future into our own hands.” Today’s youth is convinced that everyone can do something. With their large-scale action they want to make themselves heard – after all it is about their future. “If we see ourselves as a world family, we can also master the climate crisis,” says Clara a 12 year old from Ausburg.
Klaus Pfieffer, the Mayor of Pähl, is pleased that this student-led global initiative has its origins in Felix, a citizen of Pähl am Ammersee. He supports the commitment of the children there and, at the end of the weekend, thanked the sponsors who had provided catering for the children: Develey Mustard and Deli, Rapunzel Organic Foods, Barnhouse, Tutzing, New Form, and Hofpfisteri.
Attending this Plant for the Planet student initiative meeting were climate ambassadors:
Alina, Clara, Felix, Franziska, Jona, Josia, Joy, Julian, Jule, Karoline, Lea, Leon, Liam, Max, Melik-Sina, Merle, Mira, Moritz, Niklas, Raphael and Szesima, from Aichach, Augsburg, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Duisburg, Krefeld, Köln, München, Pähl Unterhaching and Erlangen.
The student initiative Plant-for-the-Planet was launched in January of 2007 and had its origins in a school paper of the then 9-year-old Felix Finkbeiner about the climate crisis. At the end of the presentation of his paper, Felix envisioned a future in which children could plant a million trees in every country on Earth, in order to compensate for increased CO2 in the air. During the following three years, Plant-for-the-Planet became a global movement, supported by the UNEP and it now receives high international political recognition.
Particularly important is the commitment of the children to the idea of climate justice, in the sense of an overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a uniform distribution of these emissions from all people, especially given the fact that the consequences of the climate crisis have much harsher effects on developing countries.
Currently, Plant for the Planet is working to build a well-organized international network so that it may become an initiative or world citizens, all working for climate justice. Already present in 72 countries, children pursue the goal to plant one million trees over the next three years in their countries, and to put up world family signs for climate justice.
So far, 680,148 trees have been planted in Germany.
The student initiative is based in Pähl Ammersee in Bavaria and is organizationally supported by the Global Marshall Plan Foundation. Moreover, actions are being taken to create an independent Children’s Foundation.
The student project is supported by global partners: UNEP, the Global Marshall Plan Foundation, the AVINA Foundation, the Club of Rome and Leagas Delany. In Germany, Toyota, and the Toyota Financial Services Academy are working as partners in the training and activities of the children.
