Young artists raise thousands for UNICEF at auction of paintings

Child artists from around the world have raised $21,000 for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to spend on climate-related disasters by auctioning off 26 of their paintings in New York last night.

The auction, held last night at the Harvard Club, was organized by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) as part of its Paint for the Planet event, which attracted nearly 200,000 entries worldwide.

The stand-out paintings from those entries were chosen for an art exhibition that is currently on display in New York and will later travel to various climate-related events and meetings worldwide, culminating in the major talks on global warming scheduled for Copenhagen at the end of next year.

All the paintings in last night's auction were sold, with two works – one by Charlotte Sullivan, a 14-year-old Brit, and the other by Renee Wang, a 13-year-old from the United States – each fetching $2,200.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman and Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), were among the guests at the auction.

The Paint for the Planet event is part of the global campaign “Unite to Combat Climate Change,” which is aiming to culminate in a definitive agreement on global warming at the Copenhagen talks.