Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Pharrell Williams announced the second ever Live Earth concert on Wednesday to promote worldwide awareness of climate change.
More than 100 artists will perform across the globe on June 18 and participate in the 24-hour festival that will take place on all seven concerts, including Antarctica. Concerts will last four to six hours, according to Rolling Stone.
Williams will serve as Live Earth's creative director but has not announced any performers yet. Host cities include New York, Johannesburg, South Africa, Sydney, Australia, Beijing, China, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Paris, France, according to Rolling Stone.
"The power of music is unique, because it's borderless without language, Pharrell will use that power. When you combine music with a message, you can effect change," Live Earth producer Kevin Wall said during the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Gore hopes the event will encourage billions to sign a petition asking for a new climate accord that can be presented to United Nations before the global body meets for the annual climate change conference in Paris in December.
The Live Earth organizers acknowledged criticism brought by climate campaigners during the first round of concerts in 2007. They found it hypocritical that performers flying around the world to perform while promoting a reduction in carbon emissions.
Williams, who performed in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, promises to address that problem this year.
"You would have pundits and comedians who didn't understand global warming and we were often ridiculed. We wanted to do something very different this time," he said.
Wall wants to broadcast the concert to a global audience of two billion on 193 television networks. People in more than 130 countries watched the first Live Earth, more than 8 million viewers online and 19 million alone in the U.S, according to The Guardian.
Performers at the first event included Genesis, the Black Eyes Peas, Metallica, the Beastie Boys, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Bon Jovi, the Police, Angélique Kidjo, Baaba Maal, Linkin Park, Roger Waters, Madonna, Snoop Dogg and MIA, according to The Guardian.
Williams did not say if he would perform at one of the concerts, but reaffirmed the real purpose of the concert.
"Instead of just having people perform, we literally are going to have humanity harmonize all at once," he said.
