Ridhima Pandey, 11, was excited because she had just downloaded Instagram, a photo-sharing app, which all her co-petitioners at the United Nations (UN) used to keep in touch with each other in a world they yearn to change.
These friends of Pandey’s are the Swedish teen and globally recognised climate-change activist, Greta Thunberg, and 14 other children from around the world who have filed a petition with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child seeking action against five countries. These countries are Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey and the action against them is because these countries failed to do enough to reduce their carbon emissions.
As many as 45 countries have ratified the convention that allows children to directly petition the UN. China, US and India, the three countries with the largest carbon emissions, have not ratified this convention and thus cannot be petitioned.