Key Points
- Indian climate activist Licypriya Kangujam conftonted the UK energy minister Zac Goldsmith.
- The eleven-year-old asked Mr Goldsmith when British activists would be released.
- Just Stop Oil says 35 of its activists are in prison on remand or serving sentences.
An eleven-year-old Indian climate activist has confronted the United Kingdom's energy minister Zac Goldsmith over the arrest of protesters demonstrating against new oil and gas licences.
Licpriya Kangujam was filmed as she repeatedly asked Mr Goldsmith when protesters would be released at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Monday.
"The government is putting them into jail for protesting against oil and new gas. When are you going to release them?" she said in the video, which was posted to Twitter.
Mr Goldsmith's staff guided him away and blocked Ms Kangujam from asking any more questions.
Climate activists in the UK have been blocking motorways, spraying paint on buildings and .
Activist group Just Stop Oil has said that 35 of their supporters are in prison on remand or serving sentences for demonstrating against new oil and gas licences.
The Guardian reported in September that some protesters have been held in remand for up to six months before being tried in court.
Ms Kangujam said the UK energy minister claimed "he didn't know anything" about the arrests.
"Climate activists should not get arrested for peaceful protest, and also he can't do anything. But I want to ask him why is he a minister if he can't do anything, why he is in COP27?" she said.
The young activist explained that actions such as blocking roads were "the last option available" to protesters.
"This is not fair, this is unacceptable, climate activists are not doing any violence or anything like that," Ms Kangujam said.
"Don't call me Indian Greta Thunberg"
Indian climate activist Licypriya Kangujam and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg hold a sign directed at Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at COP25 in Madrid, Spain in 2019. Credit: Twitter @LicypriyaK
"Many people became homeless, many homes were devastated so I was very worried about the children, innocent people losing their lives, my mind was thinking all about them, like how they were suffering from all of these environmental issues," she said.
Ms Kangujam moved to New Delhi in 2019, when she was seven, and started standing outside India's parliament building, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pass a climate change law in India.
"My life was completely messed up due to the high air pollution level and heat wave crisis, so such incidents I faced in my own life turns me into a child climate activist," she said.
She has often been likened to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who she met at COP25 in Madrid in 2019.
"If you call me 'Greta of India', you are not covering my story. You are deleting a story," she wrote on Twitter in 2020.
"I have my own identity, story. I began my movement since July 2018 even before Greta was started."
