Dame Vivienne Westwood has donated £1 million to help prevent climate change. With this move the designer claimed governments have been too slow to distribute funding for green projects. 

Photo: Vivienne Westwood with her T-shirts featuring phrase
‘I’m not a terrorist. Please, don’t kill me’

According to the designer, she donated the money after learning that only a tiny amount of the $6.5 billion (£4.2 billion) committed to the World Bank’s Climate Investments Funds (CIF) has been spent, reports The Times.

“Governments…are so slow that we can’t wait for them any more. We have to get this thing moving and hope that they’ll join in. I took as much as I could afford from my company,” said Dame Vivienne.

The designer has pledged the cash to the charity Cool Earth, which is intended to raise £7 million to prevent logging in the rainforests of Borneo, the Congo Basin and Peru. Dame Vivienne also collaborates with Cool Earth to highlight the failure of the World Bank to release money from the CIF and support projects aimed at helping developing countries confront climate.

In 2012, Westwood will present a detailed report to the British government demonstrating how her funds have been spent and thus, to show the government that working with communities to manage rainforests is the most effective way to halt deforestation.

Westwood decided to donate the money after she heard the environmentalist James Lovelock suggested that there will be only 1 billion people left by the end of this century. Dame Vivienne also calls on public to “donate a fiver” to the similar charities rather than wait for governments decisions.

Last year the designer also participated in ‘100 Days of Active resistance’ project encouraging public from around the globe to demonstrate various ways to resist some of the most unpleasant aspects of our world.