Dusted Black Santa did one-man protest at COP24s of the Poland Climate Change Convention

Special guest who came to urge the seriousness of usage of fossil fuel

At 9 am (local time, GMT+1) on Dec. 10th, at the 24th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Katowice, Poland, Art Performance type of Protest urging for the end of the fossil fuel era. At 9 am on Dec. 10th, in Katowice, Poland, instead of red clothes and white bearded Santa, Black Santa who was dusted with black smoke and particulate matters visited as a special guest. Black Santa, who appeared with black stains on his face, clothes and whiskers asserted strongly to suspend the use of fossil fuels and increase the portion of sustainable energy. There will be no direct victims of air pollution as Santa, who works primarily in the sky.

The campaign was designed by Korean environmental activists to spread out the seriousness of the air pollution of Asia caused by large factories launched in Asian countries to the international society. According to WHO, nine out of ten people now breathe polluted air, which kills 7 million people every year and 4 million among them are Asians. That is because Asia has become the chimney of the world. The campaign was also prepared to urge to stop using coal, one of the biggest factors of air pollution. Campaign panels held by Santa have written phrases in English “Prohibited Fossil Fuel Use”, and “There’s no border in the sky”. Coal is one of the most important factors for making particular matters in East Asia. In fact, five of the ten largest coal-fired power plants in the world are in China. Coal’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are two times that of gas, 1.5 times that of petroleum, and particular matters and dust emissions are more than twice as much as other fuels.

As the model for this campaign, the first environmental activist of Korea and the Goldman Prize winner, Choi Yul (69), showed that even at the age of seventy, environment movement cannot stop and it touched the heart of environment activist around world who came to visit COP24. “I got attention.” Choi said, “The use of indiscreet coal fuels by many countries including Korea is causing big problems all over the world. There can be no border on environmental issues. I will work together with many countries and many environmental activists to let the international society know about this problem until the clear blue sky comes back.” In 2009, Korea Green Foundation and an Advertising Designer, Jeseok Yi, was greeted by foreign media in Copenhagen with a strong slogan saying “A sparrow cannot clean up an elephant’s dung,”, to call on powerful countries to take the lead on environmental issues. Also, at the 21st U.N. General Assembly on Climate Change in 2015 held in Paris, they had an eye-catching campaign called ‘There’s no border in the sky’.