[ACNS by Rachel Farmer] An inter-church project supporting young people engaged in climate change initiatives through church-run schools, Sunday schools and summer camps has won an international award for tackling climate change. The World Council of Churches (WCC) project was set up through Churches’ Commitments to Children, which is a partnership between the WCC and UNICEF.

As one of 10 winners in the 2019 Keeling Curve Prize in the social and cultural impacts category, the WCC project will receive $25,000 USD (approximately £19,950 GBP).

The Keeling Prize judges said: “we are encouraged by the high quality of the work we saw during the selection process, and we look forward to hearing many success stories from these groups in the future.”

The WCC’s winning project provides churches around the world with the tools and know-how to enable effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through youth engagement initiatives, with a focus on influencing policies and legislation, and promoting good practices. By January 2020, the WCC aims to have 50 per cent of its constituency with activities in place that build the capacity of young people to act as climate activists and measure the footprint of their community and key institutions.

The prize acknowledges the achievement in “driving cultural awareness to encourage individuals and groups to promote high regard for the quality of life for all”.

An international panel of judges from the private, public and non-profit sectors chose the winners from almost 150 applications from all over the world.

Founding director of the Keeling Curve Prize, Jacquelyn Francis, said: “we need a diversity of approaches so that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, remove them from our atmosphere, and protect our planet.”

The Keeling Curve Prize is named for the Keeling Curve, which shows the accumulation of CO₂ in Earth’s atmosphere since the 1950s. Based on decades of measurements taken from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the curve was named after Charles David Keeling, who started the CO₂ monitoring program.