‘Stop making mother earth cry’

Eco-Warrior Asks World Leaders To Make Environment Edu Compulsory

Chidanand Rajghatta | TNN

Washington: A young girl from India’s Gangetic plain, where climate change issues affect everyday life and quotidian tasks such as burning the chulah affect the climate, made a plea for the ages at the United Nations on Tuesday, asking world leaders to show vision and leadership in stopping “those who make mother earth cry.”

Thirteen-year-old Lucknow girl Yugratna Srivatsava, whose first name loosely translates as a precious stone for all times, spoke eloquently about the need for the world to stop pillaging the earth in a speech that was cheered by world leaders, including the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. “Environmental problems to not recognize political boundaries,” the young girl, wearing a green and white jacket, told a packed UN audience that included India’s external affairs minister S M Krishna, environment minister Jairam Ramesh, and senior diplomats Shyam Saran and Nirupama Rao. “We have one mother earth, let us share it.” She wanted world leaders to make environmental education compulsory in schools.

But beyond the UN decision to invite Yugratna to speak as a representative of the world’s youth simmered serious concerns that the climate change issue is heading for a deadlock ahead of the Copenhagen summit in December. Wealthy nations are reluctant to cut enough emissions to take the world out of the danger zone, while poor and developing countries such as India are refusing to commit to binding caps, saying this would prevent them from growing their economies speedily. There was no indicate of any significant change in the positions on Tuesday.

Opening the summit, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said it would “morally inexcusable” not to act, a scolding that prompted both President Obama and China’s Hu Jintao to acknowledge that reaching an agreement is an important goal, although neither committed to any precise numbers. The US and China are the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gas.

Yugratna Srivatsava