Posted on September, 18 2009

Kathmandu, Nepal – Rt. Honorable Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has pledged to handover a petition against Climate Injustice signed by 207,552 youth from around Nepal when he meets UN Secretary General H.E. Ban Ki-moon during the UN Climate Change Summit to be held on 22 September 2009 in New York.


At a function held in the PM’s Residence in Baluwatar on 18 September 2009, the Prime Minister also committed that he would take a message on behalf of the climate vulnerable mountain communities of Nepal in the form of a memento of a rock from Mt. Everest addressed to the UN Secretary General as well as US President Barack Obama, during his meeting with the latter in New York on 23 September.

At the function, Deepti Timilsina, a class ten student from Ideal Model School of Kathmandu submitted the petition to the Prime Minister on behalf of all the students who signed the petition under the Climate for Life Campaign. Over the last several months, hundreds of Climate for Life volunteers have been mobilized to schools around Kathmandu and outside to teach young students about the impacts of Climate Change in the Himalayas and to sign the Youth Petition. Three Nepali NGOs namely SENSE Nepal, CEN Nepal and SEN Nepal helped the campaign in reaching out to petitioning Nepali youth and collecting their support.

“If the youth rise, the nation will also rise,” said the Prime Minister commending the efforts of the students and volunteers who worked tirelessly on the petition drive.

Similarly, two-times Everest Summiteer Mr. Dawa Steven Sherpa handed over a memento containing a piece of rock from the Summit of Mt. Everest as a symbol of the Melting Himalayas in the wake of Climate Change. The Sherpa Community of Nepal is one of the most vulnerable communities from the impacts of Climate Change in Nepal and the memento is a symbol of their protest and expectations from industrialized countries to come together to sort out the problem called Climate Change.

Minister of Environment, Hon. Mr. Thakur Prasad Sharma was also present on the occasion and praised the noteworthy efforts of the youth for taking such an initiative for an urgent cause like Climate change.