Representatives from the media and arts sectors on Saturday agreed to craft and launch a comprehensive creative campaign to educate the public on climate change and how to curb its damaging impact.

The decision was reached at the end of the Multi-Media Cultural Communication Summit on Climate Change hosted by President Arroyo in Malacañang.

The summit participants representing media, education, socio-civic, and religious sector agreed to work together to disseminate information on climate change that threatens the country and other island states, natural resources and heritage historical sites.

“Cognizant of the need to popularize science, we in the Philippines shall endeavor to apply an inter-sectoral interdisciplinary approach that expands the scope of media beyond print and broadcast to include webcast and other digital online communications technology techniques,” the group said in the declaration.

The group also plans to promote programs against climate change in “narrowcast media” and cultural media such as performance, literary, and visual arts and cinemas, indigenous rituals and traditions.

All local, national, and cultural groups in performance and communication arts were invited to join the intensified communications campaign against global warming.

The group also called on the arts and media industry to increase availability of content on climate change in audiovisual materials, dedicate resources and broadcasting space needed to report on climate change talks in Copenhagen, and reorient education and training system for capacity-building. They also encouraged their own constituents “to set quantifiable targets” for a reduction in carbon footprint.

The summit participants agreed to create an inter-agency task force to lead a workshop and craft a roadmap and action plan for this endeavor.

The action plan on climate change was presented to the President at the end of the summit.