Björk, David Bowie, Thom Yorke, More Urge World Leaders to Reach Climate Change Deal

Photo by Timothée Lambrecq

An open letter signed by Björk, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Phil Selway, David Bowie, Damon Albarn, and more urges world leaders to reach a deal at the UN’s climate change conference in Paris this Monday, Dazed reports. Compiled by charity Julie’s Bicycle on behalf of the “creative community,” the letter calls for an “ambitious and inspiring international agreement” to tackle post-2020 environmental challenges. Other musicians to sign include Courtney Barnett, Robert Plant, Chrissie Hynde, Bobby Gillespie, David Gilmour, My Morning Jacket, Bon Iver’s S. Carey, Angélique Kidjo, and Young Fathers. Read extracts below.

The creative community – design, advertising, broadcasting, publishing, film, gaming, fashion, literature, music, the performing and visual arts, galleries and museums – can make a unique contribution to the global sustainability challenge. Collectively we shape not just our material world, but our conceptual world too, including the values that underpin our lives. The creative industries generate wealth and employment but we also innovate, we shape and express cultural values, influencing how people feel and the choices they make: as such we have huge potential to prompt, and reinforce, positive and sustainable change.

The letter goes on to outline next steps for the creative industries themselves:

 

• Take action ourselves to make our businesses and our industries more sustainable, actively managing our impacts.
• Speak out to our audiences and customers, using our creative voices to affect the public narrative and create social consensus for action on climate change and environmental degradation.
• Work together to influence and support policy makers who have the capacity to accelerate positive change, to make the right decisions.
• Take a leadership role with a cultural mandate for action, which exceeds the commitments of governments.
• Do what we do best and use our creativity and our collaborative culture to help find, and scale, solutions to global environmental challenges.

Read the full letter at Julie’s Bicycle.

We interviewed Björk about environmental issues back in 2008. Read parts one and two here.

Watch Björk’s recent video calling for global action to save Iceland’s Highlands:

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