Pharrell, Gore team up for 'Live Earth' concerts for climate change
DAVOS, Switzerland — Al Gore and pop music sensation Pharrell Williams are hoping to build support for combating climate change through a worldwide music concert that will be broadcast to up to 2 billion people later this year.
The former vice president is teaming up with the singer of the global hit Happy for a "Live Earth" music event, set to take place over 24 hours on several continents June 18. The concert is an attempt to galvanize interest in the topic ahead of key climate change talks in Paris in December.
Gore and Williams were joined by entrepreneur and "Live Earth" producer Kevin Wall to unveil the initiative on stage at the World Economic Forum's 45th annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The forum brings together high-ranking political figures, hundreds of CEOs and a sprinkling of celebrities through Saturday for workshops and discussions aimed at satisfying the forum's goal of "improving the state of the world."
On the sidelines of the event, USA TODAY asked Nobel Peace Prize winner Gore what is needed to sustain public interest in a topic that routinely flits in and out of the news and still regularly divides many worldwide.
"Mother Nature has the most persuasive voice," he said. "Climate-related extreme weather events have really changed thinking dramatically."
On stage, Gore said it is "absolutely critical" that the world build momentum going into United Nations-brokered negotiations in Paris.
During a 30-minute presentation in which he reminded the audience that 2014 was the hottest year on record, Gore showed a series of dramatic slides that linked many of the world's extreme conflicts and trouble spots — from Syria to China — to a warming planet whose infrastructure is being "radically changed."
"Man-made global warming pollution already in the planet's atmosphere traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic weapons," Gore said.
Williams, the creative director of the event that will bring over 100 artists to perform on seven continents — including Antarctica — said that "instead of just having people perform, we literally are going to have humanity harmonize all at once."
A previous "Live Earth" event was held in 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, with performances from musicians such as Madonna, Kanye West and Keith Urban. Williams referred to that event as a "ball," but added that in Rio there were "pundits and comedians who didn't understand global warming and we were often ridiculed. We wanted to do something very different this time."
"I think you guys know how serious global warming is," Williams said.
Felipe Calderon, the former president of Mexico, told USA TODAY in Davos on Wednesday that taking action on climate change will not require huge economic costs for companies and economies.
Calderon said that it concerned but didn't surprise him that the issue of climate change didn't feature heavily in a recent survey gauging leading CEOs about what worried them most for the year ahead. For several thousand years, companies have been motivated more by profit than goodwill, he said.
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