Music can play a very important role in global climate change action in several ways:

- Music can build emotional bridges and facilitate intercultural dialogue among people of different cultural backgrounds thus contributing to the development of some kind of global community which is a precondition for successful global climate change negotiations.

- Music can contribute to „social synchrony“ of climate change stakeholders. Scientific research on social synchrony and cooperative behavior shows that practices involving synchrony (e.g., music, dance, and marching) may enable groups to mitigate the free-rider problem and more successfully coordinate in taking potentially costly social action (see Scott S. Wiltermuth and Chip Heath, Synchrony and Cooperation; in: Psychological science, Volume 20—Number 1, 2009).

- In terms of knowledge management Music and the “Climate Protection Song World Cup” can be regarded as a mechanism of collecting knowledge about what people feel, knowledge about how to communicate and promote a culture of peace, intercultural dialogue and collaboration and thus as knowledge about how to communicate hope (especially to the youth!).

With music as the starting point and initiatives like 350 Climate Protection Song World Cup and Global Music Project http://globalmusicproject.org as the catalyst, we can create lines of personal global communication and understanding never possible before in the history of humankind!

Global Challenges Song World Cup

Global Challenges Song World Cup shall explore new ways of how intercultural dialogue or dialogue among civilizations respectively can be used to support work of UN system by developing – based on a dialogue among civilizations on global challenges – a global identity/a global community in which joint efforts towards global challenges and joint commitment towards global climate change action are emphasized stronger than religious/linguistic/national/ethnic cleavages.

The emotional “poles” between which the songs are supposed to build a global community are “fear” (uncertainty of the future, suffering, conflict, despair, loneliness, ) and “love” (solidarity, community, love, passion, peace, togetherness, strength through mobilizing joint efforts…).

Global Challenges Song World Cup should be an important instrument for:

- developing a global community around global challenges (like e.g. climate change) humanity (Wo&Menkind) is facing today

- supporting the work and the goals of United Nations

- supporting intercultural dialogue on a global level and enhancing diversity and global exchange of cultural expressions.

The driving force of Global Challenges Song World Cup is the concept of “cooperation based on competition”: it is a contest in which artists – young and old, traditional and modern – come together to create collaborative pieces.

From these works, listeners across the globe will then select the best of the best and the winner will receive the grand prize [prize to be determined]. The net effect will be to open channels of communication between individuals beginning with discussions of music and ideally, broadening into enduring friendships.