EU Partners with MTV, Moby to Raise Climate Change Awareness

The European Commission is launching a campaign with MTV called “Play to Stop”, which aims to promote environmental consciousness on MTV in eleven EU countries. There will be concerts, television programming and online content aimed at educating European youth about climate change.

The initiative is part of the energy and climate change policy adopted by the EU in December 2008, and may be related to a recently released Europe-wide survey which shows that only half of people aged between 15 and 24 have ever taken action against climate change.

Moby will perform in Stockholm on August 20, during World Water Week, and more concerts are planned for Budapest and Copenhagen in anticipation of the U.N. climate conference on December 7.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas says:

“Events like this are vital, because young people are a tremendously important pressure group. They will be most affected by climate change – so their voices are the most important.”

An official website for the campaign was launched today (July 15) at http://www.mtvplay4climate.eu, where you can create a profile and perform various tasks to win tickets to the Moby concert in Stockholm. There’s also a promotional video that features defecating cows and vomiting aluminum cans.

Music (in general) definitely resonates with young people, and certainly MTV still has a wide influence over the next generation. It’s hardly surprising that the EU would turn to one of the largest media outlets aimed at the 15-24 demographic, but is it enough?

What else could the EU do to promote climate change awareness?

[NYTimes]