Children Learn About Climate Change In Mexico City Museum

One of the world's most polluted cities is now educating its children through a new exhibition on how carbon dioxide emissions heat and transform the planet.

A giant polar bear prowling for food on a pile of city rubbish and a dead, white coral reef form part of the Climate Change exhibition in Mexico City's Papalote children's museum, which sits in the capital's Chapultepec park.

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Mexico has led global efforts to combat climate change, including a worldwide Green Fund which its leaders plan to promote at a landmark summit in Copenhagen in December.

But many here are unaware of the key issues surrounding global warming, from risks of water shortages to mass migration and conflict if action is not taken fast.

"Climate change in a way is new, so now there's a very big effort, and this exhibition is part of this effort for climate change education at all levels of society," Tiahoga Ruge, an advisor on environmental education, told AFP.

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Organisers aim to bring thousands of children and adults through interactive displays at the six-month show, until April 2010, to raise awareness in one of the world's top oil producers, which is battling deforestation and drought.

The exhibition, which was designed by a large group of international scientists to highlight the key issues of global warming, was first shown in the National History Museum in New York and is due to travel internationally.

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It is part of growing efforts to raise the profile of climate change surrounding the December 7-18 Copenhagen meeting, which will seek to seal a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose obligations to cut emissions expire in 2012.

Mexico has promised to slash its carbon pollution by 50 percent before 2050, although environmental activists say it could do more to reduce fuel burning, a major source of carbon dioxide emissions.

"I think that if everyone in the country starts to think about what we're doing to our own planet, hopefully things will change," said museum visitor and schoolgirl Imelda Moreno Ramirez.

Source-AFP
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