British author Katherine Rundell will give all the royalties from one of her books to climate charities in response to the re-election of Donald Trump.
The author of bestsellers for children and adults has said she will donate 100% of author royalties earned from sales of The Golden Mole, her 2022 book on endangered species, “in perpetuity”. The book was published in the US on Tuesday under the title Vanishing Treasures. So far she said she has donated more than £10,000, and hopes it could eventually be much more.
“The election of a climate-change denier to the US presidency is a catastrophe for all of us,” said Rundell. “It comes at a time when the planet has never more urgently needed our protection.
“It has rarely been so tempting for anyone who cares about the fate of the living world – of the Earth itself, of the parliament of the non-human, of the terrible human suffering that climate chaos will bring – to despair. But it’s much too urgent and important for despair.”
Rundell plans to split the royalties across different organisations, which will change every five years. The initial recipients are “two relatively small charities whose work I admire colossally”, said the author. They are Blue Ventures, which helps rebuild fisheries and restore ocean life, and Forest Peoples Programme, which supports the rights of communities living in forests.
“Protecting forests is often a deadly risk for Indigenous peoples and local communities,” said Rundell, drawing attention to the 207 environmental defenders killed in 2017. “I am so grateful that these groups are there, fighting for the planet, and the people most at risk.”
The author has previously donated to Blue Ventures – when she won the £50,000 Baillie Gifford prize in 2022 for her book Super-Infinite, a biography of the poet John Donne, she donated half her winnings to the conservation charity, and half to Sea-Watch, which conducts rescues of migrants in the Mediterranean.
Royalties from all the editions of The Golden Mole published in different countries will be donated. “In the scheme of things, it’s very small – but I want my book to be a tiny part of the urgent fight ahead of us,” said the author.
Rundell has written many books for children, including Impossible Creatures, which was named Waterstones book of the year in 2023, and The Explorer, winner of the 2017 Costa children’s book award. She is also a fellow St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
Trump’s re-election is expected to result in the US leaving the Paris climate agreement, “something of grave, grave concern” to climate-vulnerable countries, Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Dr Pa’olelei Luteru, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, told the Guardian today. “Our survival is very much at risk,” he added.
Trump has called climate change “a big hoax” and “one of the great scams of all time”; he used the mantra “drill, baby drill!” repeatedly during his campaign. Analysis suggests that his agenda could add billions of tonnes to US emissions.
“I think it is going to be a hard, bleak fight ahead of us,” Rundell said. “But the time to give up is never.”
