Music superstars Lenny Kravitz, Billie Eilish and H.E.R. will team up with advocacy organisation Global Citizen for a free concert in front of the Eiffel Tower to convince world leaders to take further action against climate change.
Power Our Planet: Live in Paris on June 22 will coincide with the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, a gathering of the world’s political and business leaders to help developing nations finance sustainability projects.
Global Citizen chief executive Hugh Evans says the summit is an opportunity for governments and global banks to collaborate to jump start climate projects stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
He hopes Power Our Planet will encourage leaders to take advantage of that opportunity and provide the 16.7 billion dollars (£13.5 billion) in outstanding climate financing promised in 2009 to lower-income countries.
“Global leaders and democratically elected governments really only respond to the momentum of their people and summits like this can come and go,” Evans told The Associated Press.
“If it doesn’t achieve its goal, we’re going to miss the window this year to make the climate negotiations the success, which is even more important after last year’s complete failure in Egypt.”
The Eiffel Tower event is part of the Global Citizen initiative, announced last month at the Global Citizen Now conference in New York, supporting Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley’s call to rewrite the rules of global development banks and relieve the debts of lower-income countries to increase funding for climate adaptation projects.
Global Citizen has shown for years, especially with its A-list concerts in New York’s Central Park, that it can generate action by having cultural leaders mobilise their supporters.
Artists like Kravitz plan to motivate fans to “act today to save tomorrow”.
“The next generation are inheriting a planet that’s being devastated by climate change,” Kravitz said in a statement.
“We have the power to change things with our voices and our actions.”
French President Emmanuel Macron supports the Global Citizen event, citing the need for “a world with more solidarity”.
Major philanthropic organisations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Rotary International and Open Society Foundations, as well as the public-private partnership Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, will also support the effort.
Power Our Planet: Live in Paris, which will also include performances from Finneas, Jon Batiste, and Ben Harper, will be livestreamed on Global Citizen’s social media platforms, while Amazon Music will host the livestream on its Twitch channel.
