Cecile Guidote-Alvarez

COP18: Cross-cultural knowledge needed to beat climate change

COP18 (01/12/2012) – Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, President of the Philippine Center of the International Theatre Institute discusses their project as part of the tricontinental south-south dialogue between Colombia, Kenya and the Philippines to create a global panorama of commitments to confront climate change as an issue of survival.

Having run a competition for children to make sustainability pledges, these have now been unveiled by Christiana Figueres in a ‘tree of action’ on display at COP18. She describes how her organisation pushed for the acceptance of culture as essential to the implementation of sustainable development, which was agreed in Durban and in Rio.

She explains the role of culture in popularising the science of climate change, and describes the need for cross-cultural, multidisciplinary action to reach out and build the values and mindset necessary to confront climate change.