Inspired by the teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old student Aman Sharma started a petition on Change.org in May. He noticed that each year was becoming hotter, drier, thirstier, and more polluted. Sharma launched the campaign to pressure the government into taking action to prevent future survival consequences. His petition has garnered over 170,000 signatures. Sharma's demands to the environment ministry include increasing the country's green cover and meeting the commitments made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Despite repeated requests for comment, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change did not respond. Sharma is now aiming to attract the attention of Hollywood environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, with support from various film personalities. DiCaprio recently shared a photo on Instagram showing women in Chennai struggling to draw water from a nearly empty well, highlighting the daily challenges faced by many residents. The city has been in the global spotlight due to the drying up of its main reservoirs, a result of poor monsoons in 2018. A government report from NITI Aayog warned that Chennai was among 21 cities at risk of running out of groundwater by 2020, amidst a larger water crisis affecting 600 million people in India. Additionally, a heatwave in the north has led to the deaths of at least 36 people this year, with New Delhi experiencing record-breaking temperatures. Jitendra Sharma, a well-known Instagram influencer based in Mumbai, recently initiated a petition which garnered almost 300,000 signatures by Friday. He expressed optimism that the government would declare a climate emergency, emphasizing the importance of such action and referencing similar steps taken by other nations. In May, the UK parliament declared a symbolic climate change "emergency" in recognition of a growing activist movement, particularly among youth in Europe. Environmentalist Chandra Bhushan explained that a climate emergency involves prioritizing climate change in policy and planning processes. Bhushan from the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi stated that the Indian government will need to acknowledge the current crisis and develop a plan of action. He emphasized that despite the government's current lack of recognition of a climate emergency, it is inevitable that they will have to address it in the future.