Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Climate change is the challenge of this generation. Unchecked it is likely to destabilize economies, trigger wide-ranging environmental degradation and undermine the world’s ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

However, this is a two-sided coin. Combating climate change and realizing a transition to a low carbon society offers a real chance to break with the dirty and unsustainable development paths of the past.

In doing so it offers an opportunity to deliver a fairer, cleaner and more equitable world—one where environmental degradation becomes the exception rather than the rule.

If we are to realize this transition we must catalyze and inspire action across all governments and all sections of public and private life.

The Great Rift Valley Trust is catalyzing the world of art and imagination to rise to the climate change challenge and the urgent need to address the root causes of environmental degradation from the loss of biodiversity to freshwaters and forests.

In 2007 the Trust with the Gallmann Memorial Foundation embraced the UNEP-federated Billion Tree Campaign and fulfilled their commitment to plant one million trees through their Earth Festival art project.

The Earth Festival in 2008 centres on the related challenge of water under Project AQVA—an initiative of the Italian Fondazione Ipazia supported by the Ministry of the Environment of Italy.
Between 75 and 250 million people in Africa alone will be at risk of increased water stress with a one degree C rise; between 350 and 600 million with a two degree C climb and up to 1.8 billion if temperatures rise by three degrees C which could happen by around 2080.
Science informs the head, music the heart and art the spirit—three unique human qualities that must all be motivated if we are to answer the sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

UNEP, through its own Art for the Environment Initiative, is therefore proud to support the Trust and the Foundation and publicize its latest creative endeavor.