News
On 28 June, a World Council of Churches (WCC) intergenerational climate justice project was awarded the Keeling Curve Prize, a recognition for initiatives that offer solutions to reduce global warming.
The WCC project supports adolescents engaging in climate justice through church-run schools, Sunday schools, and summer camps. The project stems from Churches’ Commitments to Children, a partnership between the WCC and UNICEF.
Competing in the category of “Social and Cultural impacts”, the intergenerational climate justice project aims to provide churches worldwide with tools and know-how to enable effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through youth engagement initiatives, with a focus on influencing policies and legislation, and promoting good practices. By January 2020, the WCC aims to have 50% of its constituency with activities in place that build the capacity of young people to act as climate activists and measure the footprint of their community and key institutions.
Each of the ten 2019 Keeling Curve Prize winners will receive $25,000.
“We are encouraged by the high quality of the work we saw during the selection process, and we look forward to hearing many success stories from these groups in the future”, said the message announcing the prize winners.
An international panel of judges from the private, public and nonprofit sectors chose the winners from almost 150 applications from all over the world. The prize recognizes promising projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or promote carbon uptake.
The Keeling Curve Prize is named for the Keeling Curve, which shows the accumulation of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere since the 1950s. Based on decades of measurements taken from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the curve received its name because of Charles David Keeling, who started the CO₂ monitoring program.
