Lucknow girl to address world leaders on climate change

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 during a summit on the climate change in New York on Tuesday.

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 during a summit on the climate change in New York on Tuesday.

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"I'm going to tell him (Obama) that the policies that they make today are going to affect us and if they act in present then they have secured the future for us," Yugratna Srivastava told PTI.

"We received a very nice planet from our ancestors. It was green, now we have damaged it, polluted it, and we're going to give a bad planet to our successors and this is not right," Srivastava, who is also on the youth advisory board of UNEP's youth organisation called 'Tunza'(to nurture), added.

"Please listen to the voices of youth and children, and please try your best to solve all the environmental crises that are occurring in our community," is her message to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

The ninth class student of St. Fidelis College will be addressing more than a 100 world leaders at the General Assembly during the Climate Change Summit convened by the UN Chief Ban Ki-moon. India will be represented by the Foreign Minister S M Krishna and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

This summit is being held to mobilise political will ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, which is expected to yield a climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.