A student who is undertaking Masters in Development Studies at USP, Komal Karishma Kumar has urged everyone to respect the fact that everyone, even a low lying country like Fiji or a rich country has a right to a habitable planet.
While speaking at the UN Youth Climate Summit, Kumar called on world leaders to take action to fight climate change adding the youths will hold them accountable and if they do not take necessary action, the youths will mobilise and vote them out.
She added that lost and damaged compensation policies and extra support for low-income countries are still not comprehensive.
Kumar adds negotiations of climate change policy started in 1992, even before most of her generation was born.
She says young people from different parts of the world are living in constant fear and climate anxiety, fearing their future and the uncertainty of healthy life or life for their children.
She says for over 25 years the emissions have only risen adding young people to demand urgent action to phase out fossil fuel.
Fiji's young climate champions in New York include Timoci Naulusala, who rose to prominence as a leading voice in combatting the climate crisis during Fiji's presidency of COP23. Naulusala was joined by Tyler Rae Chung, a student in marine studies at USP, Ann Mary Raduva, an environmentalist and legal activist who attends Adi Cakobau School; Maanvick Gounder, a volunteer at Project Survival Pacific who attends Penang Sangam High School; and Genevieve Jiva, coordinator at the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network.
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