Betwa Sharma in Durban: For 16-year-old Vineeth Udaya Kumar, from Lakshadweep, the stalemate in the UN climate talks is a sign that individuals need to come up with innovative ways to help arrest greenhouse gases so that the earth’s temperature does not rise above 2 degrees Celsius. Kumar suggests that rather than spend millions of dollars in “inventing” energy-saving devices or alternative sources of energy, “a bicycle fitted with four brooms can be used for cleaning instead of vacuum cleaners or cleaning trucks,” while recalling a similar contraption that he had seen recently. “If you want to do something, you have to be innovative,” says the teenager confidently. In a fresh attempt to trigger interest among the youth in the looming crisis involving climate change, the Indian government has sponsored four teenagers from different parts of the country, to attend the annual climate change negotiations being held in Durban. After going through a rigorous selection process of tests and essays, administered by the Centre for Environment and Education, the 11th graders are here to observe how the mammoth United Nations conference is conducted. “It is overwhelming,” said Lakshay Rastogi (17) from Gurgaon. Being part of a delegation allows them an inside peek into the nitty-gritty of the intense diplomatic wrangling. For three days now, the four students have watched up-close how Indian negotiators deal with a wide-range of issues including the future of the Kyoto Protocol -- the only legally binding treaty on climate change, which is in jeopardy. With a North-South deadlock on how to reduce carbon emissions, there is a push for making progress on other fronts like adaptation, technology transfer and finance. But progress on these tracks is also painfully slow. “We meet here at a time when greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have never been higher, when the number of livelihoods that have been dissolved by climate change impacts has never been greater and when the need for action has never been more compelling or more achievable,” said Christian Figueres, the top UN official on climate change. Despite dire warnings, many countries appear to be keen to push the negotiations further down the road. It was recently announced that the 2012 talks will be held in Qatar while outside the conference halls, activists are staging the “Occupy Durban” movement to protest the lack of progress. South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in his opening address pointed out that the island nation of Kirabati became the first country to declare that its territory has become uninhabitable due to global warming. “They have asked for help to evacuate the population,” Zuma said. “Africa is more vulnerable because of poverty, which limits the ability of most African nations to cope with the impact of climate change,” he added. The four Indian students welcome the opportunity to hear the view points of other countries and form their own opinions on the disputes bogging down climate talks. “Every country has legitimate concerns,” said Rastogi. “But I do think Western countries need to be more understanding …they need to take the first step and we will follow.” While she doesn’t see her future as a crusty bureaucrat, Charu Dixit pointed out that knowledge about climate change will be useful for a variety of professions in the coming decades. “If I own a business or build things as an engineer, I will think about whether I am contributing to greenhouse gases,” she said. Shreya Bharti (16) from Jammu sees the visit as part of a larger knowledge sharing exercise that needs to get repeated. “Now we get to see what’s really going on far away from home,” she said. “So we can use this information to generate awareness in schools and neighborhoods.” During their selection process, they were asked to comment on human-induced climate change in the context of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology of minimalism. Rastogi wrote about khadi that also became a symbol of the independence movement in India and rejection of foreign and machine-made clothing material. Being in Durban, where Gandhi started his battle against racial discrimination, Rastogi has been dwelling more on the test question. “There is enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed,” he summed up with Gandhi’s famous quote. The island nation of Kirabati has become the first to declare that its territory has become uninhabitable due to global warming. They have asked for help to evacuate the population The Indian Government has sponsored four teenagers from different parts of the country to attend the annual climate change negotiations being held in Durban One of them is from Gurgaon while another is from Jammu