UN agency honours children for artwork on climate change

Raising awareness of the dangers posed by climate change, the United Nations environment agency has recognized three children for their artistic depictions of the phenomenon.

Eleven-year old Charlotte Sullivan of the United Kingdom took first prize in the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Children’s Painting Competition for her rendering of the world as an umbrella turned inside out by a powerful storm.

Miss Sullivan will be joined by the joint second prize winners – 12-year old Ekaterina Nishchuk of Russia and 13-year old Petkova Polina Zdravkova of Bulgaria – at the main World Environment Day celebrations hosted close to the Arctic circle in the Tromso, Norway.

Miss Nishchuk was chosen for her image of a polar bear standing under a hot sun, peeling off its white fur down to its trunks while atop a perilously small, wasted ice-berg. Miss Zdravkova’s painting is of a melting world, apparently dripping tears into the abyss of space.

“I would urge political leaders to see the world through the brush, pen strokes and paintings of these gifted children to ensure that these young peoples’ fears are not realized and their hopes fulfilled,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, who will meet the contest’s three global and six regional winners at the Tromso Museum in Norway early next month.

The competition, which was organized in cooperation with the Japan-based Foundation for Global Peace and Environment, Bayer AG and the Nikon Corporation, received 14,000 entries from 104 countries this year.