British boyband One Direction are using their powers for good with a new campaign calling on their millions of fans around the world to push governments to address extreme quality, inequality and climate change at the upcoming climate talks later this year.
The group is partnering with Save the Children as part of the ‘action/1D’ campaign, which joins recent efforts from Al Gore and the world’s youth, and CEOs from over 40 of the world’s largest corporations in calling on world leaders to commit to tackling climate change.
In a YouTube video launching the campaign, the four band members rally fans to help drive change by filming videos and sending in pictures of what they want their future to look like.
“At two historic summits in September and December, world leaders will make decisions that affect important human issues, like extreme poverty, inequality and climate change,” Harry Styles explains in the video.
"Time and again our fans have shown how creative and powerful they can be when they unite and that's why we want to all join together to speak out and hopefully make a real and lasting change to the world around us," the band says.
The launch comes as part of the action/2015 campaign, a global citizen’s movement based on the idea that 2015 can be the year when the world can set the agenda to end major global issues, backed by an international coalition of 1,600 organizations aiming to put maximum pressure on governments to enact change.
Niall Horan closes by urging fans to “Become part of action/1D — make your voice heard and make 2015 the year we change our futures forever.”
Videos submitted to the action/1D campaign will be turned into a specially commissioned film to screen at the UN Special Summit on Sustainable Development in September and at the Paris climate change talks in December.
The video already has over 600,000 views on YouTube and fans have collectively submitted almost 39,000 ‘actions’ to the campaign’s website.