A protest against global warming has garnered 11 million messages, in what is believed to be the biggest Internet-run campaign of its kind, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Monday.
WWF's international president, Ruud Lubbers, handed the messages to Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok at the start of ministerial-level talks to conclude the Kyoto Protocol, it said.
The campaign, staged on website www.climatevoice.org, was organized by the WWF and a coalition of other organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, a US environment group.
The target had been 10 million messages, addressed to 93 different world leaders, who were enjoined to "turn down the heat" by curbing the carbon-gas pollution that is causing the atmosphere to warm.
WWF spokesman Andrew Kerr said he believed it was the biggest signature-raising environmental campaign ever launched on the Internet. He was unable to say how many of the messages may have been duplicates.
Visitors to the site, which ran in English, French, German and Spanish with parallel sites in Japanese and Dutch, ranged from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, WWF said.
Talks in The Hague, encompassing more than 180 countries, aim at agreeing the contents of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that sets down principles and targets for trimming carbon-gas pollution -- THE HAGUE (AFP)
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