It was a scorching Sunday afternoon when I read the front page of the newspaper when it was in my mother’s hand- “In 2020, the earth’s surface temperature was around 0.98 Celsius degrees warmer than the 20th-century average. In the last few years, global temperatures have been consistently among the hottest on record”, read the report published by Madhumitha Jaganmohan.

Inspired by the report, I decided to take few actions at home that would help in reducing carbon pollution. My mother did not seem to take me seriously until she could see the actions become a part of my lifestyle and eventually, my parents’ too. On the same afternoon, I got a notepad and wrote down in a column three of my problematic actions at home, in another column I wrote down the three new sustainable climate actions against each problematic action point.

First, to reduce food waste, I have taken charge of the grocery shopping from my father for the last three months. I tag along with my father whenever he gets the groceries and help him take everything only in the required quantity. With the help of my mother, I also started a small vegetable garden and now I grow most of my own food. It does not only reduce transportation but also the pesticides and synthetic fertilizers used conventionally. Second, work/study from home has changed a lot of things at home. Initially, my mother, father and I used to work in three different rooms with various lights turned on throughout the day. I have convinced them to work in my room wherein I undraw the curtains of my room that helps with enough sunlight for us to work in the day.

Lastly, in one of the research papers, I also found out that “approximately 75 percent of the total energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions produced by a single load of laundry comes from warming the water itself”. Because washing and drying takes tons of energy, we now wash all our clothes in cold water. Additionally, the dryer is one of the top three energy-hungry appliances in your house, and air-drying your clothes can reduce the average household’s carbon footprint by 2,400 pounds a year. So, we have been following a completely new laundry routine for the past three months.

My parents have been so involved that they actively help me add more problematic actions and their respective revised sustainable solutions, every now and then.

I have been invited by the XYZ NGO, Delhi to share my story of climate action with the children to further encourage them to take such small steps on a regular basis to contribute to the change-making process and fulfill the larger and the end objective of combating climate change.

That's my SDG story of sustainable actions against climate change.

Class 9 student