With shout-out from Björk, UN unveils environmental awareness campaign

The Icelandic singer and green campaigner Björk today endorsed a new United Nations environmental campaign to raise public awareness on the impacts of global warming.

“CoolPlanet2009,” an initiative recently announced by the UN Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) for Western Europe, also seeks to mobilize support for a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period ends in 2012.

Björk stressed that the global financial crisis, which has hit her home country harder than many others, cannot be an excuse to curtail action to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

She expressed hope that Iceland would skip the industrial revolution and proceed directly to “sustainable high-tech options.”

The UN initiative endorsed by Björk will launch a website early next year will allow individuals across Europe to post ideas.

The next round of UN climate change talks will take place next month in Poznan, Poland, and the negotiations are expected to wrap up with a major agreement in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.