Several celebrities, including those from Hollywood, have lent their support to encourage a movement started by Delhi-based teen Aman Sharma to sign declare a national climate emergency in the country.
In May, Aman who is currently in standard 11 started a petition on the international forum change.org, addressed to the Minister of environment, forests and Climate change Prakash Javadekar urging him to declare a National Climate Emergency and recognise the shortcomings in providing a safe environment to humans.
After the 16-year-old posted his petition, Hollywood star Nathalie Kelly tagged the efforts of the teenager as "incredible" while promoting the petition on her Instagram story and even put the link to it in her bio after signing it herself.
Scores of celebrities including Maddison Brown and Bollywood actor Nikhil Dwivedi too signed the petition and applauded the initiative of the teenager.
The Delhi boy referenced the Paris Agreement which seeks to limit the Earth's warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and work towards meeting the goal of a green cover of 33per cent in the country as proposed and accepted in its National Forest Policy.
Aman is striving very had to gather momentum for the initiative. Within a span of two months the teen has collected over 160,000 signatures on his petition To give more impact, he held a tree protest in Sarojini Nagar on World Environment Day, where thousands of trees have been shredded to make way for the concrete jungle.
Currently, he is running the campaign on several social media platforms to make the initiative widespread. After making the petition viral on the Internet and being supported by several stars, it has shown a 5-time increase in daily signatures with a rise of 60,000 signatures in 24 hours!
Talking about the initiative and the climate change situation prevailing in India, Aman said, "We are in a state of an emergency right now. Eleven of the world's 15 hottest cities are in India and the national capital Delhi is the world's most polluted. Chennai is facing severe water scarcity and nobody is talking about it."
He added: "Last year, 1 lakh children under the age of 5 years died of air pollution. What more proof do we need that climate change is real. How many more innocent people and infants must succumb to pollution and heat wave before the government wakes up and takes action?! The next war shall be fought on water and natural resources, but we are too ignorant to realize this. Since the adults have been completely in denial of this crisis, it is us children who are now having to take charge and demand our rights to a clean, green and healthy environment and safeguard the earth's future."
The teenager said he now plans to meet the Environment Minister and discuss the demands of today's youth to provide full justice to climate problems.
( With inputs from ANI )