A 16-year-old boy from Hyderabad will be representing India at the 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP27) at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Ankith Suhas Rao, who is the head boy at Hyderabad Public School, will share his ideas about tackling environmental challenges at the conference organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This climate change warrior is part of a programme called ‘Decarbonise’ launched by the Centre for Global Education of Canada. Ankith spoke to News18 just before he boarded the flight to Egypt along with his teacher P Usha Sudhir.
“I have been associated with the COP group in our school for the last five years,” he said. “Over the years, we have been holding awareness programmes. in our city and establishing sustainable green practices on our school campus. We had numerous discussions with our counterparts from other countries who shared their best practices with us. In this conference, I am going to present a white paper on our learnings and observations on climate change accumulated over the years.”
The country coordinator for the ‘Decarbonise’ project, Lakshmi Annapurna Chintaluri, who is an educator, told News18 that it is the only programme in the world that allows individuals below 18 years to deliberate on climate change and present their findings to world leaders.
“HPS is the lead school in India for this programme. As many as 70 countries are part of it now. Every year, a few students from lead schools in these countries are chosen to speak at this prestigious conference. Ankith, who has been part of the group since its inception, was chosen this year,” she said.
Speaking on the issues that they have worked on, Ankith said: “We have taken it upon ourselves to tell people that climate change is happening and that it’s happening very fast. One of the topics that we took up was unseasonal rains in Hyderabad and the flash floods that wreaked havoc on the city. Through rallies and drives, we raise awareness on why these events occur and how they affect us in the long run.”
Apart from this, artwork made by these students on pressing climate issues will be presented at the conference. As members of the COP Club, HPS students have created rainwater harvesting pits, installed solar panels and reduced the use of plastic on campus.
Ankith, as part of this opportunity, will also be at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Youth (COY17). “In this 10-day programme, I will get a chance to interact with world leaders and other like-minded people. I will bring these learnings back to my country and try to implement them here to the best of my ability,” said the 16-year-old, who plans to become a climate scientist in the future.
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