Live Earth just as big as Live8: Gordon Brown

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has hailed the Live Earth concerts as just as big and important as the anti-poverty event Live8. Mr Brown said tackling climate change would be a personal priority for his premiership.

Mr Brown's remarks come as a university in England says it is launching the world's first master's degree aimed at helping to reduce carbon emissions. Star-studded concerts in New York and Rio de Janeiro were the last to get under way, after a day-long global music event that kicked off yesterday in Sydney before moving to Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Hamburg, London and Washington.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore, speaking via a satellite link, urged audiences at venues around the globe to take a seven-point green pledge to reduce their own carbon footprints on the planet and to lobby governments and industries to educe the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. However, critics pointed out that pollution caused by the concerts makes them part of the problem as well as the solution.

The concert in Shanghai, which was only attended by about 2,700 people, was seen as key in the drive to raise awareness about climate change, with China already or soon-to-become the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
The Johannesburg event was almost sold out, with the South African Grammy award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir, Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo, British diva Joss Stone and the reggae group UB40.
In Rio, 400,000 people girated to Live Earth music by Lenny Kravitz, Xuxa and Pharrell Williams on Copacabana beach.

The concerts, many powered with renewable energy and featuring recyclable stages, were carried by 120 television networks around the world and streamed live on the Internet. By 0200 GMT some 150,000 persons had pledged to decrease their use of fossil fuels, according to the Live Earth website. Live Earth featured some 7,000 events in 129 countries, with a smaller concert staged in the Japanese city of Kyoto and an unusual performance by scientists-cum-rockers Nunatak in Antarctica, where temperatures have risen by nearly three degrees Celsius in the last 50 years.
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