Saturday, September 27, 2008

Element Bremley on MTV SWITCH 2008

Half a billion MTV viewers around the world can now meet five dynamic young innovators in the race to combat global climate change, thanks to a lively and inspiring new series of short films called Element. Produced with the support of Internews, the Element series anchors a new package of films and public service announcements (PSAs) launched on September 11, 2008 by MTV Networks International as part of its global climate change campaign, MTV Switch.

Switch is MTV Networks International's Global Climate Change Campaign. They will be looking for the best ideas and innovations that can help MTV reinvent how people on earth can live in ways that are cool for humans and the planet. The Element series will be made available to MTV’s global network of 165 local TV channels in 162 countries, with a potential audience of 560 million viewers. Five new Element films will be presented to the MTV global audience of 15-25 year olds alongside cutting-edge PSAs on global warming, fresh from a stable of top European and US creative agencies.


In the five-minute pieces in the new Element series, viewers follow the stories of five young individuals who are tackling global warming head-on: Harsha, who won the Australian Young Designer of the Year award for an almost fossil fuel-free, bio-plastic molded car; Bremley, who is fighting deforestation and desertification in his native Northeast India; Courtney, an American living in Oxford, England who manages carbon offsetting projects around the world; Igor, a Brazilian whose urban food gardens are slowly spreading across Rio de Janeiro; and Sepehr, named Iran’s Best Environmental Blogger.

The films will reach global TV and Internet audiences just as the UN is convening vital international negotiations in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009. Satinder Bindra, Director of Communications for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said, “UNEP commends the MTV SWITCH campaign for commissioning programming that so effectively combines entertainment and real world examples of youth engagement in climate change. It is fascinating to see how many of the young Element entrepreneurs already have their feet firmly in the new carbon economy that UNEP is promoting.”

The Element Climate Change Series is a co-production of the Element Partnership and TVE, made with the support of Internews, the European Commission EuropeAid Cooperation Office, Oxfam Novib and the Com + Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development that includes UNEP, the World Bank and the Reuters Foundation.