A 13-year-old girl from Lucknow, speaking on behalf of the world’s three billion children, will address over a 100 world leaders, including US president Barack Obama, at a summit on climate change here on Tuesday.
“I’m going to tell him (Obama) that the policies they make today are going to affect us. If they act in the present, they will secure the future for us,” Yugratna Srivastava said.
“We received a good planet from our ancestors. It was green. But now, we have damaged and polluted it. We’re going to give a bad planet to our successors and that’s not right,” Yugratna, who is also on the youth advisory board of United Nations Environment Programme’s youth organisation ‘Tunza’ (to nurture), said.
“Please listen to the little voices and try your best to solve the environmental crises in our community”, is her message to prime minister Manmohan Singh and minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh.
The Class IX student of St Fidelis College will address more than 100 world leaders at the general assembly during the climate change summit convened by UN chief Ban Ki-Moon.
External affairs minister SM Krishna and Jairam Ramesh will represent India at the summit. The summit is being held to mobilise political will ahead of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. The conference is expected to yield a climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
“They (the world leaders) have to take into account the opinion of the three billion youth… We are ready to help them. Whatever protocol they make, it should be an action-oriented one and should be enforced,” she said.
Commenting on the divide between the developed and developing worlds on the issue, she said, “Each country should do its best since environmental problems don’t differentiate between political or geographical boundaries.”
The young environmentalist said she was proud to represent India. “I’m nervous but also confident that I have the voice of three billion children that will reach them,” she said.
