This story brings different feelings: a sense of hope in knowing that people of the world are willing to cooperate and help each other, and a sense of profound sadness in realizing that young people have more holistic morals and sense of responsibility than any of the leaders of industrialized countries negotiating in the UNFCCC.
Crossposted from Itsgettinghotinhere.org by Robert vanWaarden
Students presents first donation ever to William Agyemang-Bonsu from the Adaptation Fund
[Bonn, April 7, 2009] Today at the Bonn Climate Change talks a group of students from Gymnasium Marienschule in Euskirchen, Germany, took a step that no nation or organization on this planet has managed to take. In a symbolic gesture they provided the first contribution to the Adaptation Fund! After hearing a presentation by Stuart Scott, (a consultant & trainer with The Climate Project), the students of Marienschule (represented by Britta Börnicke, Jacob Klein, Fabian Beusch, Nicolas Gomez) decided to take matters into their own hands. The students asked for donations from their class and managed to raise €131.09. This bag of cash was then handed in a symbolic gesture to William Agyemang-Bonsu from the Adaptation Fund Board. Despite trillions of dollars being found to bail out the economy, the developed nations of the world have yet to commit any money to the Adaptation Fund.
The Adaptation Fund was established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. It is supposed to be financed from the share of proceeds on the clean development mechanism project activities and other sources of funding. However, to date, no other money has been produced for the Adaptation Fund.