Licypriya Kangujam: Little Climate Champ
The U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP28) was held in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December 2023 with 197 countries’ representatives. COP aims to resolve the causes of climate change and global warming.
On 11 December 2023, as countries clashed over an agreement to phase out fossil fuels at COP28, Licypriya Kangujam, a 12-year-old Indian climate and environmental activist, stormed onto the stage, waving a placard above her head that read, “End fossil fuels. Save our planet and our future.” The audience applauded her most appealing speech, which stirred an urgency to address environmental issues on a global platform. However, she was escorted away and expelled from COP28.
The teen protestor springs from Manipur, a small carbon-negative state in India, and studies in Grade 7 at Ryan International School. She fights to save the planet and its future. Growing up in Odisha, her life was struck by Cyclone Titli in 2018 and Cyclone Fani in 2019, leaving her loved ones homeless, orphaned and lifeless. She then moved to Delhi but was trapped by its high air pollution and heat wave crisis. All these incidents turned her into a child climate activist.
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