A new Noah's Ark will be built on Mount Ararat in Turkey to urge the Group of Eight to take decisive action on climate change, Greenpeace Italy said on Wednesday.
A team of 20 Turkish and German carpenters are about to start constructing a 10-metre-long ark halfway up the mountain where, according to the Bible story, the original one landed when the Great Flood subsided.
A caravan of 40 horses has already dragged 12 cubic metres of wooden planks up to an altitude of 2,500 metres so that carpenters can start constructing the keel, frame and supports of the boat.
The Greenpeace initiative is being timed so that the wooden vessel will be finished in time for the G8 summit in the German town of Heiligendamm on June 6-8. Climate change is one item on the agenda at the meeting.
The new ark, symbolising hopes of saving the planet from an environmental catastrophe, will be unveiled on May 31 when Greenpeace mountaineers will climb the 5,137-metre peak.
"A lot of words will be churned out in Heiligendamm on the subject of climate change but now is the time for action," said Francesco Tedesco, climate change expert for Greenpeace Italy.
"We're asking the G8 leaders to adopt the objectives set out by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to not throw away the umpteenth opportunity," he added.
The IPCC groups 2,500 scientists and is the top world authority on climate change. Last month it issued a bleak report on the impact of global warming, predicting effects ranging from widespread hunger in Africa to a fast thaw in the Himalayas.
It said warming, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would cause desertification, droughts and rising seas and would hit hard in the tropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to Pacific islands.
