Yugratna Srivastava is an Indian climate activist from Lucknow who serves as an incumbent Organising Partner of the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth.
At the age of thirteen, she addressed the opening segment of the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in New York in September 2009. She has since then held roles in the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth.
Early life and education Srivastava was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. She studied at St. Fidelis College in Lucknow, and went on to join Tarumitra, a youth environmental organisation made up of high schools and colleges in India. She later went on to complete a Bachelor of Technology in electronics and communication at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad.
2009 United Nations address Representing Tarumitra at the 2008 Tunza International Children's Conference of the United Nations Environment Programme held in Norway, Srivastava was elected by the conference's participants to speak for the world's children and youth at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Summit and was appointed as the Asia-Pacific representative of the Tunza Junior Board.
On 22 September 2009, she addressed the Summit on Climate Change convened by United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations headquarters in New York, which was attended by heads of state and government, including US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao.
The Hindustan Times described her as the first teenager from India to address a United Nations summit.
Later activism During the preparatory process for the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Srivastava delivered a presentation to world leaders including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and President Obama. During the conference she interviewed then-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Earth to Paris event, and in April 2016 she delivered a closing statement as a youth representative at the signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement in New York.
In 2017, The Ecologist named her among the global top ten young climate activists. At the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, she was one of three young activists selected to interview Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, and German federal minister Gerd Müller at the opening of the Climate Planet exhibition.
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