The sweetest invitation to save the climate at COP23

The youth of Plant-for-the-Planet are giving special chocolate bars to delegates at UN’s Climate Conference COP23. Inside the wrapper of the Change Chocolate, the children and youth explain how the average temperature rise can still be limited to 2°C. They suggest to plant a trillion trees globally. Each tree in average binds 10 kg of CO2 per year. In total, the young Climate Justice Ambassadors brought 73,840 bars of Chocolate to Bonn.

Among the 25,000 delegates and observers at the Climate Confernece, there are young people from all over the world. For 10 years, they are fighting for their future. It’s the bitter truth that the average temperature rise can’t be limited by 2°C even if all states keep their promises given at the Paris Climate Conference. While the official delegates negotiate about binding rules, the youth of Plant-for-the-Planet asks them to do even more: one trillion trees are necessary to save their future. They would bind 25 to 50 percent of all human-made CO2 emissions. Thereby, humanity gains more time to solve the most urgent problem it is facing: the climate crisis.

The Change Chocolate is a sweet invitation to help plant the 1,000 billion trees. That’s just 150 per person. As a recent study published in Nature shows, there are currently 3 trillion trees growing. Adding another billion is possible. Afforestation should first focuss on the enormous regions of degraded land.

The sweet letter to the delegates is signed by Felix Finkbeiner from Germany and Yugratna Srivastava from India, both members of the Global Board of Plant-for-the-Planet. Felix founded the children’s and youth’s initiative when he was 9 years old. Both Felix and Yugratna already gave speeches at the UN General Assembly when they were children. This year, it’s a special honour for them that Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, also signed the letter inside the Change Chocolate.

Anyone can join them by planting trees. If one has no garden, he can simply donate for trees. Plant-for-the-Planet plants its trees in Mexico, where they not only grow quite fast and bind a lot of CO2, but also create new jobs for the local population.   

Click here to see more photos of the Chocolate Distribution