Linkin Park and UN Sustainable Energy for All

Europa Newswire

Photo by Luiz Rampelotto

United Nations, November 08 2011

Grammy Award Winning rock band Linkin Park today announced its commitment to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative.

Speaking to reporters, Ban said the band “can help us spread this message and mobilize efforts to being sustainable energy to all.”

The Secretary-General continued to speak about the band’s continuous support in the past for humanitarian causes, including other UN initiatives such as their contribution to the “Not Alone” video, which sought to raise awareness and funds for Haiti after it was hit by a devastating earthquake last year.

Earlier this year, band-member Dave Farrell visited Haiti this week and met with local officials in an effort to coordinate aid from the band’s charity organization, Music for Relief.

Linkin Park has been instrumental in promoting disaster relief and mitigation through its charity organization Music for Relief which was after the Indian Ocean tsunami struck South Asia in 2004.

Band-member Michael Kenji Shinoda said “we started thinking about access to energy or the lack of it and what it really means for daily life” adding that “if Music for Relief aims to protect eco-systems and support disaster risk mitigation, we have to begin with energy access.”

Currently, some 1.4 billion people worldwide are estimated to lack access to electricity, with another billion having to deal with unreliable electricity networks. In total, nearly three billion people rely on solid fuels such as coal or traditional biomass for their basic cooking and heating.

Talking about the band’s work in support of sustainable development, Shinoda said “many people think that power just comes from an outlet and we want to share the complex truth about energy access. And number 2, we also want to make a difference on the ground.”

Ban’s Sustainable Energy Initiative for All initiative was launched in September, and at its core is the vision of achieving universal access to modern energy services, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, all by 2030.
Source: UNifeed